Full text of "New York sketches"

See other formats

NEW YORK
SKETCHES

BYJESSE LYNCH WILLIAMS

ri'^^

Class
Book
Coiyriglit N"_

NEW YORK SKETCHES

' .r. I' i '..*.' 41

On the Harlem River — University Heights from Fort George.

NEW YORK SKETCHES

JESSE LYNCH WILLIAMS

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK:::::::::::::::::::::::::i902

\ \2.^

^r-ci

THE LIBRARY OF
CONOHF.S6.

Tw(,i CoH.t» httC£ivEO

NOV. 19 1902

CnovRiGMT ENTRY

CLASS(X-XXc. No.

Published, November, 1902

Trow Directory

Printing &* Bookbinding Company

New York

^caDc CrcigI)ton milmm

CONTENTS

PAGE

The Water-Front i

The Walk Up-Town 27

The Crciss Streets 63

Rural New York City 99

ILLUSTRATIONS

On the Harlem River — University Heights from Fort George Fro?itispiece

PAO E

Grant's Tomb and Riverside Drive (from the New Jerse\' Shore) . 3

Down along the Battery sea-wall is the place to watch the ships

go by 5

Old New Amsterdam 7

Just as it has been tor years. ^Between South Ferry and the Bridge.)

New New York, 9

Not a stone's throw farther up . . . the towering white city of the new century. (Between
South Ferry and the Bridge. )

From the point of view of the Jersey commuter . . . some un-
common, weird effects 1 1

( Looking back at Manhattan from a North River feny-boat. )

Swooping silently, confidently across from one city to the other 13

(East River and Brooklyn Bridge.)

Looking up the East River from the Foot of Fiftv-ninth Street . -15

E\en in sky-line he could find something new almost every week or

two . . 17

The end of the dav — looking back at Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge.

For the little scenes . . . quaint and lovable, one goes down

along the South Street water-front 19

Smacks and oyster-floats near Fulton Market. [ At the foot of Beekman Street, East River. )

This is the tired city's playground 21

Washington Bridge and the Speedway — Harlem River looking south.

Here is where the town ends, and the country begins .... 23

( High Bridge as seen looking south from Washington Bridge. )

The Old and the New, from Lower New York across the Bridge to

Brooklyn 24

From the top of the high building at Broadway and Pine Street.

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

The old town does not change so fast about its edges . . . .25

(Along the upper East River t'runt Idiiking north toward Blatkwell's Island.)

opposite the o\al ot" the ancient Bowling Green ... 29

immigrant hotels and homes 90

No. I Broadway -20

Lower Broadwav during a parade -?0

The beautiful spire of Trinity 9 1

clattering, crowded, t\pical Broadway 32

City Hall with its grateful lack of height 9-2

What's the matter .' 24.

In the wake of a fire-engine -25

No longer to be thrilled . . . will mean to he old ... 37

Grace C'hurch spire becomes nearer -20

Through L nion Square 40

windows which draw women's heads around . . . .41

Instead of buyers . . . mostly shoppers jj.2

crossing Fifth Ayenue at Tvvent\-third Street .... 43

Madison Square vyith the sparkle of a clear . . . October mornint; . 44

In front of the Kitth A\enuc Hotel 45

Diana on top glistening in the sun 46

Seeing the A\enue from a stage-top 47

people i;o to the right, up Fifth Ayenue 48

A seller of pencils 49

It is also better vyalking up here 50

those who walk for the sake of walking 51

At the lower corner of the Waldorf-Astoria 52

with baby-carriages 53

This is the region of Clubs 54

^The Union League.]

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

close-ranked boarding-school squads . . . . . -55

the coachmen and footmen flock there 56

The Church of the Hea\enly Rest 57

Approaching St. Thomas's 59

The Uni\ersitv' Club . . . with college coats-of-arms ... 60

Olvmpia Jackies on shore leaxe 61

Down near the eastern end of the street 65

Across Trinity Church-vard, from the West 67

An Evening \'iew of St. Paul's Church 69

The sights and smells of the water-front are here too . . . ■ 71

An Old Landmark on the Lower West Side 73

(Junction ot Canal and Laight Streets.)

LTp Beekman Street 75

Each . . . has to change in the greatest possible hurry from block to block.

Lender the Approach to Brookhn Bridge 77

Chinatown 79

It still remains whimsicalh' indi\idual and \-illage-like . . . .81

A Fourteenth Street Tree 83

Such as broad Twent\-third Street with its famous shops ... 85

A Cross Street at Madison Square 87

Across Twentv-fourth Street — Madison Square when the Dewev Arch

was there 88

Herald Square 91

As it Looks on a Wet Night — The Circle, Fiftv-ninth Street and

Eighth A\enue 93

Hideous high buildings 95

Looking east from Central Park at night.

Flushing \'olunteer Fire Department Responding to a Fire Alarm . 103
A Bit of Farm Land in the Heart of Greater New York . . .105

Acre after acre, farm after farm, and never a sign of cit)- in sight.

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

One of the Farmhouses that have Come to Town 107

Tflc old Dun'ea House, Flushing, once used as a liL-ad-quartcni for Hessian officers.

East Kuil of Durvea House, where the C"<nv is Stahled .... 108

The Old W'ater-power Mill from the Rear of the Old Countrv

Cross-roads Store 109

'I'he Old Cc>untr\- Cross-roads Store, Established 1828 . . . .110

In the background is the old water-power mill.

Interior of the Old C<)uiitr\- Cross-roads Store ill

The Colon\- of Chinese Farmers, Near the Geographical Centre of

New York Citv 112

Working as industrially as the peasants of Europe, blue skirts, red

handkerchiefs about their heads 113

Remains of a Windmill in New York Citv, Between Astoria and

Stein wav . . I 14

The Dreary Edge of Long Island Cit\ . . . . . -115

Fhe Procession of Market-watrons at College Point Ferr\' . .116

Past dirtv backyards and sad \acant lots I 17

New York Citv Up in the He^innings of the Bronx Regions — Skat-
ing at Bronxdale I iq

Another Kind of Cit\ Life — Along the Alarshes of Jamaica Bav . 121

There is profitable ovster-dredging in se\eral sections of the citv . 1 23

Cemetery Ridge, Near Richmond, Staten Island 126

A Peaceful Scene in New "Vork 127

In the distance is St. .Andrew's Church, Borough of" Richmond, Staten Island.

A Relic of the Early Nineteenth Centur\, Borough of Richmond . 128

An Old-fashioned, Stone-arched Bridge. (Richmoiul, Staten Island) . 129

An Old Hotise in Flatbush 131

THE WATER-FRONT

Grant's Tomb and Riverside Drive (from the
New Jersey Shore).

THE WATER-FRONT

DOWN along the Battery sea-wall is the place to watch
the ships go by.
Coastwise schooners, lumber-laden, which can get far
up the river under iheir own sail ; big, full-rigged clipper
shins that have to be towed from the lower bav, their toD-
masts down in order to scrape under the Brooklyn Bridge ;
barques, brigs, brigantines — all sorts ot sailing craft, with
cargoes from all seas, and tlying the flags o£ all nations.

White-painted river steamers that seem all the more
flimsy and riverish if they happen to churn out past the
dark, compactly built ocean liners, who come so deliberately
and arrogantly up past the Statue of Liberty, to dock after

NEW YORK SKETCHES

the long, hard job ot crossing, the home-comers on the
decks already waving handkerchiefs. Plucky little tugs (that
whistle on the slightest provocation |, pushing queer, bulky
floats, which bear with ease whole trains ot freight-cars,
dirty cars looking frightened and out ot place, which the
choppy seas try to reach up and wash. And still queerer
old sloop scows, with soiled, awkward canvas and no shape
to speak of, bound for no one seems to know where and
carrying you seldom see what. And always, everywhere, all
day and night, whistling and pushing in and out between
everybody, the ubiquitous, faithful, narrow-minded old ferry-
boats, with their wonderful helmsmen in the pilot-house,
turning the wheel and looking unexcitable.

That is the way it is down around Pier A, where the
New York Dock Commission meets and the Police Patrol
boat lies, and by Castle Garden, where the river cratt pass so
close you can almost reach out and touch them with your
hand.

The " water-front " means something different when you
think of Riverside and its greenness, a tew miles to the
north, with Grant's tomb, white and glaring in the sun, and
Columbia Library back on Cathedral Heights.

Here the " lordly " Hudson is not yet obliged to become
busy North River, and there is plenty of water between a
white-sailed schooner yacht and a dirty tug slowly towing in
silence — for there is no excuse here for whistling — a cargo
of brick for a new country house up at Garrisons ; while on

■r;!iiij_uiiiiiii^- :•

I*Ifc^. 'frSt'^'' " y,}i iua-i MFTjffirrS^^^^' :?**L

Down along the Battery sea-waii is the place to watch the ships go by.

NEW YORK SKETCHES

the shore itself instead or wharves and warehouses and terry-
sHps tliere are yacht and rowing chib houses and an occa-
sional bathing pavilion ; and above the water edge, in place
of the broken ridge ot stone buildings with countless win-
dows, there is the real bluti^ ot good green earth with the
well-kept drive on top and the sun glinting on harness-
chains and automobiles.

Now, between these two contrasts you will find — vou
///i!]' rind, I mean, tor most ot vou preter to exhaust Europe
and the Orient betore you begin to look at New York — as
many different sorts of interests and kinds ot picturesqueness
as there are miles, as there are blocks almost.

For instance, down there bv the starting-point. It vou
go up toward the bridge from South Ferrv a block or so and
pull down your hat-brim far enough to hide the tower ot the
Produce Exchange, you have a bit of old New Amsterdam,
just as it has been for years, so old and so Amsterdamish,
with its long, sloping roofs, gable windows, and even
wooden-shoe-like canal-boats, that you may easilv teel that
you are in Holland, if you like. As a matter ot tact, it is
more like Hamburg, I am told, but either will do it you get
an added enjoyment out ot things by noting their similarity
to something else and appreciate mountains and sunsets more
by quoting some other person's sensations about other sun-
sets and mountains.

But if you believe that there is also an inherent, charac-

Old New Amsterdam.

Just as it has been for years.

(Between Soutti Ferry and the Bridge.)

NEW YORK SKETCHES

teristic beautv in tlie material maiiiiestations or the spirit of
our own new, vigorous, fearless republic — and whether you do
or nt)t, it you care tt) look at one ot these sudden contrasts
referred to— not a stone's throw farther up the water-front
there is a notable sii^ht of newest New York. This, too, is
good to look at. Behind a foreground ot tall masts with
their square rigging and mystery (symbols of the world's
commerce, if you wish), looms up a wondrous bit of the
towering white city oi the new century, a cluster of modern
high buildings which, notwithstanding the perspective oi a
dozen blocks, are still high, enormously, alarmingly high —
symbols of modern capital, perhaps, and its far-reaching pos-
sibilities, or they may remind you, in their massive grouping,
oi a cluster ot mountains, with their bright peaks glistening
in the sun tar above the dark shadows of the valleys in
which the streams of business t^ow, down to the wharves and
so out over the world.

Now, separately they may be impossible, these high
buildings ot ours — these vulgar, impertinent " sky-scrapers ;"
but, as a group, and in perspective, they are tine, with a
strong, manly beauty all their own. It is the same as with
the young nation ; we have grown up so fast and so far that
some ot our traits, when considered alone, may seem dis-
pleasing, but they appear less so when we are viewed as a
whole and trom the right point ot view.

Or, on the other haml, tor scenes not representatively
commercial, nor residential either in the sense that Riverside

y^gi^ H«

New New York.

Not a stone's throw farther up . . . the towering white city of the new centurj-.

(Between South Ferry and the Bridge.)

NEW YORK SKETCHES

IS, Vtiit more of the sort that tlie \\ord " picturesque " sug-
gests to most people : There are all those odd nooks and
corners, here and there up one ri\er and down the other,
popping out upon vou with unexpected vistas tull oflife and
color. Somehow the old town does not change so fast
about its edges as back from the water. It seems to take a
longer time to slough off the old landmarks.

The comfortable country houses along the shore, half-
way up the island, first become uncomtortable city houses;
tlien tenements, warehouses, sometimes hospitals, even police
stations, before they are finally hustled out of existence to
make room for a foul-smelling gas-house or another big
brewery. Many of them are still standing, or tumbling
down ; pathetic old things they are, \\ ith incongruous cupo-
las and dusty fanlights and, on the river side, an occasional
bit of old-fashioned garden, with a hunker which was for-
merly a terrace, and the dirty remains of a summer-house
where children once had a good time — and still do have,
different-looking children, who love the nearby water just
as much and are drowned in it more numerously. It is not
only by way of the recreation piers that these children and
their parents enjoy the water. It is a deep-rooted instinct
in human nature to walk out to the end of a dock and sit
down and gaze; and hundreds of them do so every day in
summer, up along here. Now and then through these
vistas vou get a <jood view of beautitul Blackwell's Island
with its prison and hospital and poorhouse buildings. Those

I -

2 S

NEW YORK SKETCHES

who see it oftenest do not coiisiilcr it beautiful. They
always speak of it as "The Island."

For those who do not care to prtiwl about for the scat-
tered bits of interest or who prefer what Baedeker would
call "a nvagniticent panorama," there are plenty of good
points of vantage troni which tt) see whole sections at once,
such as tlie Statue of Liberty or the tops of high buildings,
or, obviously, Brooklyn Bridge, which is so very obvious
that many Manhattanese would never make use oi this
opportunity were it not for an t)Ccasional out-of-town visitor
on their hands. No one ought to be allowed to live in
New York City — he ought to be made to live in Hrooklvn
— who does not go out there and look back at his town
once a year. He could look at it every day and get new
effects ot light and color. Even in skv-line he could rtnd
something new almost every week or two. In a few vears
there w ill be a more or less even line — at least a t^entle un-
dulation— instead of these raw, jagged breaks that give a
disquieting sense of incompletion, or else look as if a great
conflagration had eaten out the rest of the buildings.

The skv-line and its constant change can be watched to
best advantage from the point of view o{ the fersev com-
muter on the ferry; he also has some wonderful coKiring to
look at and some uncommon, weird effects, such as that n{
a late autumn afternoon (when he lias missed the i;.i c^ and
has to go t)ut on the 6.26) and it is already quite dark, but
the citv is still at work and the towering; otfice-buildin<£s are

THE WATER-FRONT

Swooping silently, confidently across from one citj' to the other. . . .
(I'-.ist Kiver and Brooklyn Bridge, i

lighted — are brilliant indeed with many perfectly even rows
of light dots. The dark plays tricks with the distance, and
the water is black and snaky and smells of the night. All

NEW YORK SKETCHES

sorts of strange tiares ot light and puffs of shadow come
from somewhere, and altogether the comniutcr, if he were
not so accustomed to the scene, ought not to mind being
late for dinner. However, the commuter is used to this,
too.

That scene is spectacular. There is another from the
water that is dramatic. Possibly the pilots on the Fall River
steamers become hardened, but to most of us there is an
exciting delight in creeping up under that great bridge
of ours and daringly slipping through without having it
fall down this time ; and then looking rather boastfully
back, at it, swooping silently, confidently across from one
city to the other, as graceful and lean and characteristically
American in its line as our cup defenders, and as overwhelm-
ingly powerful and tearless as Niagara Falls. However
much like the Thames Embankment is the bit of East Fiftv-
ninth Street in a yellow fog, and however skilful you may
be in making an occasional acre of the Bronx resemble the
Seine, our big bridges cannot very well remind anyone of
anything: abroad, because there aren't any others.

For the little scenes that are not inspiring or awful, but
simply quaint and lovable, one goes down along the South
Street water-front. Fulton Market witli its memorable
smells and the marketeers and 'longshoremen ; and behind it
the slip where clean-cut American-model smacks put in, and
sway excitedly to the wash from the Brooklyn ferry-boats,
which is not noticed by the sturdy New Haven Line steam-

Looking up the East River from the Foot of Fifty-nintli Street.

NEW YORK SKETCHES

ers nearby. On the edge of the street and the water are the
oyster floats, half house and half boat, which look like solid
shops, with trout doors, troni the street side until, the seas
hitting them, they, too, begin to sway awkwardK' and startle
the unaccustoined passer-by.

It is down around here that vou Hnd slouching idly in
front of ship-stores, loahng on cables and anchors, the jolly
jack tar t)f niodern days. From all parts of the world he
comes, any nuniber of him, if you can tell him w hen you see
him, for he is seldom tarry and less often jollv, unless drunk
on the very pt)or grog lie gets in the various evil-looking
dives thickly strewn along the water-fronts. Some oi' these
are modern plate-glass vsaloons, but here and there is a cosev
old-time tavern (with a step-down at the entrance instead of
a step-up), low ceiling, dark interior, and in the window a
thicklv painted ship's model with fiies on the rigging.

Farther down, near Wall Street ferry, where the smells
of the world are gathered, you may see the stevedores un-
loading liqueurs and spices from tropical ports, and coffees
and teas ; nearby are the places where certain men make
their livings tasting these teas all day long, while the horse-
cars jangle by.

Old Slip and other odd-named streets are along here,
where once the water came before the city outgrew its
clothes ; before Water Street, now two or three blocks back,
had lost all riirht to its name. Here the bi<r slantiii"; bow-
sprits hunch away in over South Street as if trying to be

NEW YORK SKETCHES

quits witli the land tor its encroachment, and the plain old
brick huildings huddled together across the way have no
cornices tor tear ot their being poked off. Queer oUl build-
ings thev are, sail lotts with their peculiar roots, and sailors'
lodging-houses, and the shops where the seaman can buy
everything he needs trom suspenders to anchor cal^les, so
that atter a ten-thousand mile cruise he can spend all his
several months' pay within two blocks ot where he tirst puts
foot on shore and within one night trom when he does so.
Very otten he has not energy to go tarther or money to buy
anything, thanks to the slavery system which conducts the
sailors' lodging-houses across the way. There is nothing
very picturesque about our modern merchant marine and its
ill-used and over-worked sailors ; it is only pathetic.

Those are some of the reasons, I think, why East
River is more interesting to most ot us than North River.
Another reason, perhaps, is that East River is not a
river at all, but an arm ot the ocean which makes Long
Island, and true to its nature in spite ot man's error it holds
the charm of the sea. The North River side of the town
in the old days had less to do with the business ot those who
go down to the sea in ships, was more rural and residential;
and now its water-front is so jammed with railway terry-
houses and ocean-steamship docks that there is little room
for anything else.

However, these long, roofed docks of famous Cunarders
and x^merican and White Star Liners, and of the Erench

i.S

O o

4J 55

1. o

NEW YORK SKETCHES

steamers (which have a rDund-roiif dock of a sort all their
own) are interesting in their way, too, and the names ot" the
foreign ports at the open entrance cause a strange fret to he
up and gt)ing ; especially on certain days of the A\eek when
thick smoke begins to pour frt)m the great tunnels which
stick out so enormously above the top storv o{ the now noisy
piers. Cabs and carriages with coachmen almost hidden by
trunks and steamer-rugs crowd in through the dock-gates,
while, within, the hold baggage-derricks are rattling and
there is an excited chatter of good-by talk.

By the rime you get up to Gansevoort Market, with its
broad expanse of cobble-stones, the steamship Hnes begin to
thin out and the terries are now sprinkled more sparsely.
Where the avenues grow out into their teens, there are coal-
yards and lumber-vards. On the warehouses and factories
are great twenty-toot letters advertising soap and cereals, all
ot which are the best. . „ , Farther up is the region
ot slaughter-houses and their smells, gas-houses and their
smells. . . . And so on up to Riverside, and across
the new bridge to the unknown wildness of Manhattan's
tarthest north, and Fort Washington with its breastworks,
which, it is pleasing to see, are being visited and picnicked
upon more otten than formerly.

Hut over on the east edge ot the town there is more to
look at and more ot a variety. All the way trom the Bridge
and the big white battle-ships squatting in the Navy Yard
across the river ; up past Kip's Bay with its dapper steam-

This is the tired city's playground.
Washington Bridge and the Speedway— Harlem River looking south.

NEW YORK SKKTCHES

yachts waiting to take their owners home trom husiness ;
past BellevLie Hospital and its Morgue, past Tliirty-tourth
Street terry with its streams of funerals and tishing-parties;
Hlackwell's Island with its green grass and the \'oung doc-
tors playing tennis, oblivious to their surroundings; Hell
Gate with its boiling tide, where so many are drowned
every year ; East River Park with its bit of green turt" (it is
too bad there are not more of these parks on our water-
fronts) ; past Ward's Island with its public institutions ; Ran-
dall's Island with more public institutions — and so, up into
the Harlem, where soon, around the bend, the occasional tall
mast looks very incongruous when seen across a stretch of
real estate.

And now you have a totally different feel in the air and
a totally different sort of " scenery." It is as different as the
use it is put to. Below McComb's Dam Bridge, clear to the
Battery, it was nearly all work ; up iiere it is nearly all play.

On the banks of the river, rowing clubs, yacht clubs,
bathing pavilions — they bump into each other, they are so
thick ; on the water itself their members and their contents
bump into each other on holidays — launches, barges, racing-
shells and all sorts ot small pleasure craft.

Near the Manhattan end of McComb's Dam Bridge are
the two fields famous for football victories, baseball cham-
pionships, track games, open-air horse siiows ; across the
bridge go the bicyclers and automobilists, hordes of them,
brazen-braided bicyclists who use chewing-gum and lean tar

Here is where the town ends, and the country begins.
(High Bridge as seen luoking south from Washington Bridge.)

NEW YORK SKETCHES

^.m Mil ff^tlff!'

I'he Old and the New, from l-owtr >;ew
\'ork Across the Bridge lo Hrouklyn.

i'rcim the top of the high building ;il Hroadway
and I'iiie Street,

Dver, leather coated
thautteurs with their
eves unnecessarily pro-
tected.

l^p the river are college and scIu)ol ovals and athletic
helds ; on the ridges upon either side are walks and paths
for lovers. Eor the lonelv pedestrian and antiquarians, two
old revolutionarv torts and some good colonial architecture.
Whirlv-go-rounds and big wheels for children, groves and
beer-gardens for picnickers ; while down on one bank of
the stream upon the broad Speedway go the thoroughbred
trotters with their red-faced masters behind in light colored
driving coats, eves goggled, arms extended.

On the opposite banks are the two railroads taking peo-
ple to Ardsley Casino, St. Andrew's CJolf Club, and tiie
other country clubs and the public links at Van Cortlandt

THE WATER-FRONT

Park, and taking picnickers and family parties to Mosholu
Park, and regiments and squadrons to drill and play battle
in the inspection ground nearby, and botanists and natural-
ists and sportsmen for their fun farther up in the good green
country.

No wonder there is a different feeling in the air up

«dte|..v -^^lijli 1:''^,

■■'11;,

fTf^^

The old town does not change so fast about its edges.
(Along the upper East River front looking north toward Blackwell's Island.)

NEW YORK SKETCHES

along the best known end of the city's wnter-front. The
small, unimportant looking winding river, long distance
views, wooded hills, green terraces, and even the great solid
masonry of High Bridge, and the asphalt and stone resting-
places on Washington Bridge somehow help to make you
feel the spirit of freedom and outdoors and relaxation. This
is the tired citv's playground. Here is where the town
ends, and the ct)untry begins.

THE WALK UP-TOWN

. opposite the oval of the ancient Bowling Green.

THE WALK UP-TOWN

THE walk iip-town reaches from the bottom of the
buzzing region where money is made to the bright
zone where it is spent and displayed ; and the walk is a de-
light all the way. It is full ot variety, color, charm, exhil-
aration— almost intoxication, on its best days.

Indeed, there are connoisseurs in cities who say that of
all walks of this sort in the world New York's is the best.
The walk in London from the city to the West End by
way ot Fleet Street, the Strand, and Piccadilly, is teeming with

NEW YORK SKETCHES

^raat iiutels and hume

No. I Broadway.

1 ^m^

mm,

Lower Hroadway during a parade,

interest to the tourist — Temple
Har, St. Clement's, Trafalgar
Square and all — hut, lor a walk
up-town, a walk, home to he taken
daily, it is apt to he oppressive
and saddeninir even without the
tog; so say many ot those who
ij^sui know it hest. Paris, with her
houlevards, undouhtedly has unap-
proachahle opportunities for tiie
Ihuicur, hut like Rome and \'ienna
and most ot the other European
capitals, she has no owe main ar-
tery for a homeward stream of
working humanity at close of day;
and that is what " the walk up-
town " means.

And vet so iitw, comparative-
ly, ot those whose physique and
office hours permit, take this ap-
petizing, worry-dispelling walk vii
ours ; this is made ohvious every
afternoon, from three o'clock on,
hy the surface and elevated cars,
into which the hulk of scowling
New \'ork seems to prefer to push
itself, after a day spent mostly in-
3°

THE WALK UP-TOWN

doors ; here to get bumped and ill-tempered, snatching an
occasional glimpse of the afternoon paper held in the hand
which does not clutch the strap overhead. It seems a great
pity. The walk is just the
right length to take before
dressing for dinner. A line
drawn eastward from the
park plaza at Fifty-eighth
Street will almost strike an
old mile-stone still standing
in Third Avenue, which
says, " 4 miles from City
Hall, New York." The
City Hall was in Wall
Street when those old-fash-
ioned letters were cut, and
Third Avenue was the Post
Road.

Many good New York-

I . .-1 1 /- The beautiful spire of Trinity . . .

ers (chieny, fiowever, of

that small per cent, born in New York, who generally know
rather little about their town except that they love it) have
not been so remotelv far down the island as Battery Park for
a decade, unless to engage passage at the steamship offices
which until recently were to be found in the sturdy houses

NEW YORK SKETCHES

of the sjood old Row (though once called " Mushroom
Row") opposite tiie oval ot the ancient BowliuLi; (ireeu,
where now the oddlv placed statue ot Ahrani de Pevster sits

and stares all dav. (Now
that these old irahle win-
dows and hroad chiinneys
;n"e none I wonder how he
will like the new C'ustoni-
house.)

Now, the grandmothers
of these same New York-
ers, long ago, hetore there
were any steamships, when
Castle CJarden was a sepa-
rate island and Battery Park
was a fashionable esplanade

. . . cluttering, crowded, typical Broadway. ^-.^,,^,, \vhich tO Watcll the

shipping in the bay and the sunsets over the Jersey hills —
their grandmothers, dressed in tight pelisses and carrying ret-
icules, were wont to take a brisk walk, in their very low-cut
shoes, along the sea-wall before breakfast and breathe the
early morning air. They did not have so far to go in those
days, and it was a fashionable thing to do. To-day you can
see almost every variety oi humanity on the cement paths
from Pier A to Castle Crarden, except that known as fashion-
able. But the sunsets are just as good and the lights on the
gentle hills of Staten Island quite as soft and there are nu)re

THE WALK UP-TOWN

varieties ot water-craft to
gaze at in the bristling bay.
I should think more people
would come to look at it all.
I mean ot those even
who do not like to mingle
with other species than their
own and yet want fresh air
and exercise. On a Sunday

• r ^ ... City Hall with its i^rateful lack of height . . .

in Winter it they were to

come down here for their atternoon stroll they would find
(alter a pleasant trip on nearly empty elevated cars) less
" objectionable " people and fewer ot them than on the
crowded up-town walks.

What there are ot strollers down here — in winter — are
representatives of the various sets ot eminently respectable
janitors' tamilies (ot which there are almost as many grades
as there are heights of the roots trom which they have de-
scended), and modest young jackies, with Happing trousers,
and open-mouthed emigrants, though more of the latter are
to be seen on those tiimsy, one-horsed express wagons com-
ing from the Barge Office, seated on piles ot dirty baggage
— with steeraee tags still fresh — whole tamilies ot them,
bright-colored head-gear and squalling children, bound tor
the foreign-named emigrant hotels and homes which are as
interesting as the immigrants. Some ot these latter are right
opposite there on State Street, including one with " pillared

NEW YORK SKETCHES

What's the matter?

balconv rising from the
second Hour to the roof,"
which is said to he the ear-
her home of Jacob Dolph
in liunncr's novel — a better
tate surely than that of the
other New York house for
which the hook was named.
Across the park and up
and around West Street are
more of these immigrant
places, some with foreign lettering and some plain Raines's
law hotels with mirrored bars. One of them, perhaps the
smallest and lowest-ceiled of all, is where Stevenson slept, or
tried to, in his amateur emigranting.

These are among the few older houses in New York
used for the same purposes as from the beginning. They
seem to have been left stranded down around this earliest
part of the town by an eddy in the commercial current
which sweeps nearly everything else to the northward from
its original moorings. . . . But this is not what is com-
monlv meant by " down-town," thou2;h it is the farthest
down you can go, nor is it where the walk up-town prop-
erly begins.

The Walk Up-town begins where the real Broadway
begins, somewhat above the bend, past the foreign consulates,
away from the old houses and the early nineteenth century

THE WALK UP-TO\VN

In the wake of a fire-engine.

atmosphere. Crowded side-
walks, a continuous roar,
intent passers-bv, jammed
streets, clanging cable-cars
with down-towners dodg-
ing them automatically ;
the region of the modern
high business building.

Above are stories un-
countable (unless vou are
willing to be bumped
into); beside you, hurried-looking people gazing straight
ahead or dashing in and out of these large doors which
are kept swinging back and forth all day ; very heavy doors
to push, especially in winter, when there are sometimes
three sets of them. Within is the vestibule bulletin-board
with hundreds ot men's names and office-numbers on it ;
near by stands a judicial-looking person in uniform who
knows them all, and starts the various elevators bv ex-
claiming " Up ! " in a resonant voice. While outside the
crowd still hums and hurries on ; it never gets tired ; it
seems to pay no attention to anything. It is a matter of
wonder how a living;; is made by all the newsstands on the
corners; all the dealers in pencils and pipe-cleaners and shoe-
strings and rubber faces who are thick between the corners,
to whom as little heed is given as to the clatter of trucks or
the wrangling of the now-blocked cable-cars, or the cursing

NEW YORK SKETCHES

truck-drivers, or the echoiiijj; hammcriiiL!; ot the iroii-\\t)rkers
on the huge girders o\ that new office huilding across tlie wav.

But tliat is si 111 pi \- because the crowd is accustomed to
all these coinnioii phenomena of the citv street. As a
matter of tact, half of them are not so terrifically busy and
important as they consider themselves. They seem to he in
a great hurry, hut they do not move very fast, as all know
who try to take the walk up-town at a brisk pace, and most
of them wear that intent, trt)ubled expression of countenance
simply from imitation or a habit generated by the spirit oi
the place. But it gives a quaking sensation to the poor
young man from the country who has been walking the
streets tor weeks looking tor a job ; and it makes the visit-
ing foreigner take out his note-book and write a stereotyped
phrase or two about Americans — next to his note about our
" Quick Lunch " siijns which never fail to astonish him,
and behind which may be seen hmciiers lingering for the
space oi two cigars.

An ambulance, with its nervous, arrogant bell, comes
scudding down the street. A very important young interne
is on the rear keeping his balance with arrogant ease. His
youthful, spectacled face is set in stony indifference to all
possible human suffering. The police clear the way for
him. And now see your rushing " busy throng " forget
itself and stop rushing. It blocks the sidewalk in five
seconds, and still stays there, growing larger, after those
walking up-town have passed on.

THE WALK UP-TOWN

The beautiful spire of Trinity, with its soft, brown stone
and the green trees and quaintly lettered historic tombs
beneath and the damp monument to Revolutionary martyrs
over in one corner — no longer looks down benignly on all
about it, because, for the
most part, it has to look
up. On all sides men have
reared their marts of com-
merce higher t h a n the
house ot God.

It seems perfectly prop-
er that thev should, for they
must build in some direc-
tion and see what valuable
real estate they have given
up to those dead people
who cannot even appreciate
it. Here among the quiet
graves the thoughtful stran-
ger is accustomed to moral-
ize tritely on how thoughtless of death and eternity is " the
hurrying throng" just outside the iron fence, who, by the
way, have to pass that church every day, in many cases three
or tour times, and so can't very well keep on being impressed
by the nearness of death, etc., about which, perhaps, it is just
as well not to worry during the hours God meant tor work.
Even though one cannot get much of a view from the stee-

No longer to be thrilled

mean to be old.

NEW YORK SKETCHES

pie, except din\ii W all Street, which looks harmless and dis-
appointingly narrow and quiet at tirst sight. Trinity is still
one of the show-places oi New York, and it makes a pleasing
and resttul landmark in the walk up Broadway. It deserves
to he starred in Baedeker.

Now comes the moct rushing section of all down-town :
from Trinity to St. Paul's, clattering, crowded, typical
Down-Town. So much in a hurry is it that at Cedar Street
it skips in twenty or thirty teet a whole section of numbers
from 119 to 135. The east side of the street is not so
capricious; it skips merely from No. 120 to 128.

The people that cover the sidewalks up and down this
section, occasionally overflowing into the streets, would
probably be pronounced a typical New York crowd, al-
though half of them never spend an entire day in New York
City from one end of the month to the other, and half of
that half sleep and eat two oi their meals in another State of
the Union. The proportion might seem even greater than
that, perhaps it is, if at the usual hour the up-town walker
should be obliged to struggle up Cortlandt Street or any of
the terry streets down which the torrents ot commuters
pour.

Up near St. Paul's the sky-scrapers again become thick,
so that the occasional old-fashioned tive or six story build-
ings of solid walls with steep steps leading up to the door,
seem like playthings beside which the modern building

THE WALK UP-TOWN

shoots up — on up, as if just beginning where the old ones
lett off. More Hke towers are many of these new edifices,
or magnified obehsks, as seen from the ferries, the windows
and lettering for hieroglyphics. Others are shaped like
plain goods-boxes on end,
or suggest, the ornate ones,
pieces of carefully cut cake
standing alone and ready to
fall over at any moment
and damage the icing.

Good old St. Paul's,
which is really old and, to
some ot us, more lovable
than ornate, Anglican Trin-
ity, has also been made to
look insignificant in size by
its overpowering commer-
cial neighbors, especially as
seen from the Sixth Avenue

Elevated cars against the

Grace Church spire becomes nearer.

new, ridiculous high build-
ing on Park Row. But St. Paul's turns its plain, broad. Co-
lonial back upon busy Broadway and does not seem to care
so much as Trinity. The church-yard is not so old nor so
large as Trinity's, but somehow it always seems to me more
rural and church-yardish and feels as sunny and sequestered as
though miles instead ot a tew teet trom Broadway and business.

NEW YORK SKETCHES

Through Union Square.

Now, off to the right
oblique from St. Paul's,
inarches Park. Row \\ ith its
verv mixed crowd, which
overflows the sidewalks, not
only now at "[oiniT-home
time, but at all hours of
the dav and most of the
night ; and <.)n up, under
the bridge conduit, black just now with home-hurrving
Brooklvnites and Long Islanders, we know we could soon
come to the Bowerv and all that the Bowery means, and
that, of course, is A walk worth taking. Hut The W'alk
Up-town, as such, lies straight up Broadway, between the
substantial old Astor House, the last large hotel remaining
down-town, and the huge, obtrusive post-office building, as
hideous as a badly tied bundle, but which leads us on be-
cause we know — or, it strangers, because we do not kimw — -
that when once we get beyond it we shall see the calm,
unstrenuous beauty ot the City Hall with its grateful lack
of height, in its restful bit t)t park. Here, under the first
trees, is the unconventional statue of Nathan Hale, and there,
under those other trees — up near the court-house, I suppose
— is where certain memorable boy stories used to begin,
with a poor, pathetic newsboy who did noble deeds and in
the last chapter always married the daughter ot his former

employer, now his partner.

THE WALK UP-TOWN

By this time some of the regular walkers up-to\vn have
settled down to a steady pace; others are just falUng in at
this point — -just talHng in here where once (not so very
many years ago) the city fathers thought that few would
pass but farmers on the way to market, and so put cheap
red sandstone in the back
of the City Hall.

Over there, on the west
side of the street, still stands
a complete row of early
buildings — one of the very
few remaining along Broad-
way— with gable windows
and wide chimneys. Law-
yers' offices and insurance
signs are very prominent
for a time. Then comes a
block or two chiefly of
sporting-goods stores with
windows crowded full of
hammerless guns, smokeless cartridges, portable canoes, and
other delights which from morning to night draw sighs out of
little boys who press their faces against the glass awhile and
then run on. Next is a thin stratum composed chiefly of
ticket-scalpers, then suddenly you And yourself in the heart
of the wholesale district, with millions ot brazen signs, one
over another, with names "like a list of Rhine wines;"
block after block of it, a long, unbroken stretch.

windows which draw wnmen's heads around.

NEW YORK SKETCHES

Instead of buyers

. mostly shoppers.

This comes nearer to being monotonous than any part
of the walk. But even here, to lure the walker on, tar
ahead, almost exactly in the centre of the canon of commer-
cial Broadway, can he seen the pure white spire of Grace
Church, planted there at the bend of the thoroughfare, as if
purpt)sely to stand out like a beacon and signal to those
below that Broadway changes at last and that up there are
.si)me Christians.

But there are always plenty ot people to look at, nor are
they all black-mustached, black-cigared merchants talking
dollars; at six o'clock women and girls pour down the stairs
and elevators, and out upon the street with a look of re-
lict; stent)graphers, cUnik inspectors, torewomen, and little
girls of all ages. Then you hear " (ntod-night, Mame."
"Good-night, Rachel." "What's your hurry? (iot a
date?" And off' they go, nK)stly to the eastward, looking
exceedingly happy and not invariably overworked.

THE WALK UP-TOWN

. . . crossing Fifth Avenue at Twenty-ihird Street.

Others are emissaries from the sweat-shops, men with
long beards and large bundles and very sober eyes, patri-
archal-looking sometimes when the beard is white, who go
upstairs with their loads and come down again and trudge
ofF down the side-street once more to go on where they left
off, by gas-light now.

And all this was once the great Broadway where not
many years ago the promenaders strutted up and down in
the afternoon, women in low neck and India shawls ; dan-
dies, as they were then called, in tremendous trousers with
huge checks. Occasionally even now you see a tew stroll-
ers here by mistake, elderly people from a distance revisit-
ing New York after many vears and bringing their fimilies
with them. "Now, children, you are on Broadway!" the
fatherly smile seems to say. " Look at everything." They
probably stop at the Astor House.

As the wholesale drv-o^oods district is left behind and
the realm of the jobbers in " notions " is reached, and the

NEW YORK SKKTCHES

handlers of artificial flowers
ami patent buttons and all
sorts ot specialties, Grace
Church spire becomes near-
er and clearer, so that the
base of it can be seen.
Here, as below, and farther
below and above and every-
where along Broadway, are
the stoop and sidewalk sell-

. . . Madison Square witli the sparkle uf a clear . . .

October morning. crs of candics, dogs, conibs,

chewing-gum, pipes, looking - glasses, and horrible burn-
ing smells. Thev seem especially to love the neighbor-
hood of what all walkers up-town detest, a new building in
the course of erection — with sidewalks blocked, and a set of
steep steps to mount — only, your true walker up-town always
prefers to go around by wiy of the street, where he is almost
run down by a cab, perhaps, which he forgets entirely a
moment later when he suddenly hears a stirring bell, an ap-
proaching roar, and a shrieking whistle growing louder :

Across Broadway flashes a fire-engine, with the horses at
a gallop, the earth trembling, the hatless driver leaning for-
ward with arms out straight, and a trail of sparks and smoke
behind. Another whizz, and the long ladder-wagon shoots
across with firemen slinging on their flapping coats, while
behind in its wake are borne manv small crazed boys, who
could no more keep from running than the alarm-bell

THE WALK UP-TOWN

at the engine-house could
keep trom ringing when
the poHceman turned on
the circuit. And young
boys are not the only ones.
No more to he thrilled by
this delight — it will mean
to be old.

Ill

At last Grace Church,
with its clean lisjht stone, is '" f™"' °f "i= r-'f* Avem.e Hotd.

reached ; and the green grass and shrubbery in front oi' the
interesting-looking Gothic rectory. It is a glad relief. And
now — in tact, a little before this point — about where stood
that melancholy building bearing the plaintive sign " Old
London Street " — which was used now for church ser-
vices and now prize-hghts and had never been much of a
success at anything — about here, the up-town walkers no-
tice (unless lured off to the left by the thick tree-tops of
Washington Square to look at the goodliest row of houses in
all the island] that the character of Broadway has changed
even more than the direction of the street changes. A
short distance below the bend all the stores were wholesale,
now they are becoming solidly retail. Instead of buyers the
people along the street are mostlv shoppers. Down there
were very few women ; up here are very lew men. This

NEW YORK SKETCHES

Diana on top glistening in the sun.

is especially noticeable
when L^ n i o ii Square is
reached, with cable - cars
clanging around Dead
Man's Curve in front of
Lafayette's statue. Here,
down Fourteenth Street,
may be seen shops and
shoppers of the most viru-
lent type; windows which
draw women's heads around
whether thev want to look.
or not, causing them to run
you down and making them deaf to your apologies for it.
Big dry-goods stores and small millinery shops ; general
stores and department stores, and the places where the side-
walks are crowded with what is known to the trade as
" Louis Fourteenth Street furniture." All this accounts for
there being more restaurants now and different smells and
another feeling in the air.

From the upper corner of Union Square, with its glit-
tering jewellery-shops and music-stores and publishers' build-
ings, and its somewhat patlietic-looking hotels, once fash-
ionable but now fast becoming out-of-date and landmarky
(though they seem good enough to those who sit and wait
on park benches all day), the open spaciousness of Madison
Square comes into view, the next green oasis for the up-

THE WALK UP-TOWN

^^^

Seeing the Avenue from a stage-top.

town traveller. This will
help him up the interven-
ing blocks if he is not in-
terested in the stretch of
stores, though these are a
different sort of shop, and
they seem to say, with their
large, impressive windows,
their footmen, their buttons
at the door, "We are very su-
. perior and fashionable."

The shoppers, too, are
not so rapacious along here,
because they have more time ; and the clatter is not so
great, because there are more rubber-tired carriages in the
street. Nor are all these people shoppers by anv means, for
along this bit of Broadway mingle types ot all the different
sorts of men and women who use Broadway at all : nuns,
actors, pickpockets, detectives, sandwich-men, little girls
going to Huyler's, artists on the way to the Players'^ — the
best people and the worst people, the most mixed crowd in
town may be seen here of a bright afternoon.

When they get up to Madison Square the crowd divides
and, as some would have us think, all the " nice " people go
to the right, up Fifth Avenue, while all the rest go the left,
up the Broadway Rialto and the typical part oi the Tender-
loin.

NEW YORK SKETCHES

. people go to the right, up Fifth Avenue.

But \v h e n Madison
Square is reached vou have
come to one of the Places
';il of New York. It is the
picture so nianv conhnncd
New Yorkers see w hen
homesick, Madison Square
with the sparkle ot a clear,
bracing October morning,
the creamy Garden Tower
over the trees, standing out
clear-cut against the sky,
Diana on top glistening in
the sun ; a soft, purple light under the branches in the park,
a long, decorative row of cabs waiting for "fares," over to-
ward the statue of Farragut, and lithe New York women,
wearing clothes as they alone know how to wear them, cross-
ing Fifth Avenue at Twenty-third Street while a tall Tam-
many policeman holds the carriages back with a wave of his
little tinsjer.

It is all so typically New York. (^ver on the north side
by the Worth monument I have heard people exclaim,
" Oh, Paris ! " because, I suppose, there is a broad open ex-
panse ot asphalt and the street-lights are in a cluster, but it
seems to me to be as New "^'orkish as New York can be.
It lias an atmosphere distinctively its own — so distinctly its

own that many people, as I tried to say on an earlier page,

A seller of pencils.

THE WALK UP-TOWN

miss it entirely, simply be-
cause they are looking for ■
and failing to lind the at-
mosphere of some other
place.

Now this last lap of the
walk — from green Madison
Square and the new Mar-
tin's up the sparkling ave-
nue to the broad, bright
Plaza at the Park entrance,
where the brightly polished hotels look down at the driving,
with their awnings Happing and flags out straight — makes
the most popular part of all the walk.

This is the land of liveried servants and jangling harness,
far away, or pretending to be, from work and worry ; this
is where enjoyment is sought and vanity let loose — and that,
with the accompanying glitter and glamour, is always more
interesting to the great bulk ot' humanity.

It is also better walking up here. The pavements are
cleaner now and there is more room upon them. A man
could stand still in the middle ot the broad, smooth walk
and look up in the air without collecting a crowd instanta-
neously. You can talk to your companion and hear the
reply since the welcome relief of asphalt.

NEW YORK SKETCHES

It i^ ;iU'> I'Ctt'T walkii

1,,. Ik

Here can he seen hun-
dreds ot those will) walk tor
the sake ot walking, not
only at this hour hut all day
long. In the moniing,
large, prosperous - looking
New Yorkers with side-
whiskers and well-ted hod-
ies — and, unintcntionallv,
such amusing expressions,
sometimes — walking part
way, at least, down tc^ husiness, with partly read newspapers
under their arms; while in the oppt«ite direction go young
girls, slender, erect, with hair in a hraid and school-hooks
under their arms and well-prepared lessons.

Then come those that \va\k at the conyenience of dogs,
attractive or kickahle, and a little later the close-ranked
hoarding-schcH>l squads and the cohorts ot nurse-maids with
baby-carriages tour abreast, charging eyeryone oft the side-
walk. Next come the mothers of the babies and their
aunts, setting out tor shopping, imless they have gone to
ride in the Park, and tor Guild Meetings and Reading Clubs
and Political I^conomy Classes and Heaven knows what
other important morning engagements, ending, perhaps,
with a visit to the nerve-specialist.

And so on throughout the morning and afternoon and
evening hours, each with its characteristic phase, until the

5°

those who walk for the sake nf walking.

THE WALK UP-TOWN

last late theatre-party has
gone home, laughing and
talking, from supper at
Sherry's or the Waldorf-
Astoria; the last late bach-
elor has left the now quiet
club ; the rapping of his
cane along the silent avenue
dies away down an echoing
side-street ; a n d a lonely
policeman nods in the
shadow of the church gate-post. Suddenly the earliest milk-
wagon comes jangling up from the ferry ; then dawn comes
up over the gas-houses along East River and it all begins
over again.

But the most popular and populous time of all is the
regular walking-home hour, not only for those who have
spent the day down toward the end of the island at work,
but tor those who have no more serious business to look
alter than wandering trom club to club drinking cocktails,
or from house to house drinking tea.

All who take the walk regularly meet many of the same
ones every day, not only acquaintances, but others whom we
somehow never see in any other place, but learn to know
quite well, and we wonder who they are — and they wonder
who we are, I suppose. Pairs of pink-faced old gentlemen,
walking arm-in-arm and talking vigorously. Contented

NEW YORK SKETCHES

At the lower comer of the Waldorf-Astoria.

y(.)Ling couples who look at
the old turniturc in the
antique-shop windows and
who are evidently married,
and other younger couples
who evidently soon \\ ill be,
and see nothing, not even
their friends. Intent-
browed young business men
with newspapers under
their arms ; governesses out
with their charges ; bevies of fluffy girls with woodcock
eves, especially on matinee day with programmes in their
hands, talking gushingly.

It is a sort of a club, this walking-up-the-avenue crowd;
and each member grows to expect certain other members at
particular points in the walk, and is rather disappointed
when, for instance, the old gentleman with the large nose is
not with his daughter this evening. " What can be the
matter?" the rest of us ask each other, seeing her alone.

There is one man, the disagreeable member of the
club, a bull-frog-looking man of middle age with a Ger-
manic face and beard, a long stride, and a tightly buttoned
walking-coat (I'm sure he's proud of his chest), who comes
down when we are on the way up and gets very indignant
everv time we happen to be late. His scowl savs, as plainly
as this type, " What are you doing way down here by the

ivith baby -cam ages.

THE WALK UP-TOWN

Reform Club ? You know
you ought to be passing the
Cathedral bv this time ! "
And the worst of it is, we
always do teel ashamed,
and I'm afraid he sees it.

This mile and a half
from where Flora McFlim-
sey lived to the beginning
ot the driving in the Park
is not the staid, sombre, provincial old Fifth Avenue which
Flora McFlimsey knew. Up Fifth Avenue to the Park
New York is a world-city.

Not merely have so many of the brown-stone dwellings,
with their high stoops and unattractive impressiveness, been
turned over to business or pulled down altogether to make
room tor huge, hyphenated hotels, but the old spirit of the
place itselt has been turned out ; the atmosphere is different.

The imported smartness ot the shops, breeches makers
to His Royal Highness So-and-So, and millinery establish-
ments with the same Madame Luciles and Mademoiselle
Lusettes and high prices, that have previously risen to tame
in Paris and London, together with the numerous clubs and
picture-galleries, all furnish local color; but it is the people
themselves that vou see along the streets, the various lan-
guages they speak, their expression ot countenance, the way

NEW YORK SKETCHES

This is the region of clubs. (The Union League.)

thcv liold themselves, the
manner ot their servants —
in a word, it is the atmos-
phere of the spot that
makes you feel that it is
not a mere metropoHs, but
along this one strip at least
our New York is a cos-
mopolis.

And the Walk-Up-town
hour is the best time to ob-
serve it, when all the world is driving or walking home from
various duties and pleasures.

There, on that four-in-hand down from Westchester
County comes a group of those New Yorkers who, unwill-
ingly or otherwise, get their names so often in the papers.
The lackey stands up and blows the horn and they manage
very well to endure the starina; of those on the sidewalks.

Here, in the victoria behind them, is a woman who
worships them. She would give many of her husband's
new dollars to be up there too, though pretending not to see
the drag. See how she leans back in the cushions and tries
to prop her eyebrows up, after the manner of the Duchess
she once saw in the Row. She succeeds fairly well, too, if
only her husband wouldn't spoil it by crossing his legs and
exposing his socks.

Here are other women with sweet, artless faces who do

THE WALK UP-TOWN

close-ranked boarding-school squads.

not seem to be strenuous or
spoiled (as yet) by the world
thev move in, and these are
the most beautiful women
in all the world ; some in
broughams (as one popular
story-writer invariably puts
his heroines), or else walk-
ing independently with an
interesting gait.

Here, in that landau,
comes the latest foreign-titled visitor, urbane and thought-
fullv attentive to all that his friends are saying and pointing
out to him. And here is a bit ot color, some world-exam-
ining, tired-eyed Maharajah, with silk clothes — or was it only
one of the foreign consuls who drive along here every dav.

There goes a fashionable city doctor, who has a high
gig, and correspondingly high prices, hurrying home for his
office hours. Surely, it would be more comfortable to get
in and out of a low phaeton ; this vehicle is as high as that
loud, conspicuous, advertising florist's wagon — can it be for
the same reason ?

Here in that grinding automobile come a man and two
women on their way to an East Side ta/^k d'hote, to see
Bohemia, as thev think ; see how reckless and devilish they
look bv anticipation ! Up there on that 'bus are some peo-
ple from the country, real people from the real country, and

NEW YORK SKETCHES

the ' inchinen and footmen flock tlu

their mouths are open and
thcv don't care. They are
having much more pleasure
out of their trip than the
self-conscious family group
entering that hig gilded
hotel, whose windows are
constructed for seeing in as
well as out i and that is
another way of advertis-
ing).

Here comes a prominent citizen outlining his speech on
his way home to dress for the great banquet to-night, tor
he is a well-known after-dinner orator, and during certain
months of the year never has a chance to dine at home with
his family. Suppose, after all, he fails of being nominated !

Here come a man and his wife walking down to a well-
known restaurant — early, so that he will have plenty of time
to smoke at the table and she to get comfortably settled at
the theatre with the programme folded before the curtain
rises ; such a sensible way. He is not prtiminent at all, but
they have a great deal of quiet happiness out of living, these
two.

And there goes the very English comedian these two are
to see in Pinero's new piece after dinner, though they did
not observe him, to his disappointment. It is rather late for
an actor to be walking down to his club to dine, but he is

THE WALK UP-TOWN

flTiilaL«lllll

HHHk^i' aI^^b

flHHiti

The Church of the Heavenly Rest.

the star and doesn't come on
until the end of the first act,
and his costume is merely
that same broad-shouldered
English-cut frock coat he
now has on. We, how-
ever, must hurry on.

Because it keeps the
eyes so busy, seeing all the
people that pass, one block
of buildings seems very much like another the first few times
the new-comer takes this walk, except, ot course, tor con-
spicuous landmarks like that of the new library on the site
of the late reservoir or the Arcade on the site of the old
Windsor Hotel, with its ghastly memories ; but atter awhile
all the blocks begin to seem very difl^erent ; not only the
one where you saw a boy on a bicycle run down and killed,
or where certain well-known people live, but the blocks
formerly considered monotonous. There are volumes ot
stories along the way. Down Twentv-ninth Street can be
seen, so near the avenue and vet so sequestered, the Church ot
the Transfiguration, as quaint and low and toy-like as a stage-
setting, ever blessed by stage-people for the act which made
the Little Church Around the Corner known to evervone, and
by which certain pharisees were taught the lesson they should
have learned from the parable in their New Testament.

NEW YORK SKETCHES

Farther up is a church t)f' another sort, where Europeans
of more or less noble blood marry American daughters ot
acknowledged solvency, while the croud covers the side-
walks and neighboring house-steps. Here, consequently,
other people's children come to be married, though neither,
perhaps, attended tliis church before the rehearsal, and get
quite a good deal alnuit it in the society coUmm too, though,
to tell the truth, thev had hoped that the solemn union
of these two souls would appropriately call forth more
publicity. Shed a tear tor them in passing. There are
many similar disappointments in life aU)ng this thorough-
fare.

Farther back we passed what a famous old rich man
intended for the finest house in New York, and it has thus
far served chiefly as a marble moral. Its brilliance is dingy
now, its impressiveness is gone, and its grandeur is some-
thing like that of a Swiss chalet at the base (>i a mountain
since the erection across the street of an overpowering, glit-
tering hotel.

This is the region of clubs ; they are more numerous
than drug-stores, as thick as fiorists' shops. Hut it seems
only yesterday that a certain club, in moving up beyond
Fortieth Street, was said to be going ruinously tar up-tinvn.
Now nearly all the well-known clubs are creeping farther
and farther along, even the old Union Club, whith for long
pretended to enjoy its cheerless exclusiveness dinvn at the
corner of Twenty-first Street, stranded among piano-makers

THE WALK UP-TOVVN

Approaching St. Thomas's.

and publishers, and then with a leap and a bound went up
to Fiftieth Street to build its bright new home.

Soon the new, beautiful University Club at Fiftv-fourth
Street, with the various college coats of arms on its walls,
which never tail to draw attention from the out-of-town
visitors on 'bus-tops, will not seem to be very far up-town,
and by and by even the great, white Metropolitan will not
be so much like a lonely iceberg opposite the Park en-
trance. I wonder it anyone knows the names of them all ;
there always seem to be others to learn about. Also one
learns in time that two or three houses which tor a long
time were thought to be clubs are really the homes ot
former mayors, receiving from the city, according to the
old Dutch custom, the two lighted lamps for their door-
ways. This section of the avenue where, in former years,
were well-known rural road-houses along the drive, is once

NEW YORK SKETCHES

The University Club . . . with college coats of arms.

more becoming, since the
residence regime is over, the
region ot" famous hostelries
of another sort.

There is just owq of the
old variety left, and it,
strangely enough, is within
a few feet ot two of the
most tamous restaurants in
America — the somewhat
quaint and quite dirty old
\\ illow Tree Cottage ; named presumably tor the tough
old willow-tree which still persistently stands out in front,
not seeming to mind the glare and stare ot the tall elec-
tric lights any more than the complacent old tumble-
down frame tavern itselt resents the proximity ot Delmon-
ico's and Sherry's, with whom it seems to tancy itself to be
in bitter but successful rivalry — tor do not all the coachmen
and footmen tiock there during the long, wet waits of
winter nights, while the dances are going on across at
Sherry's and Delmonico's ? Business is better than it has
been tor years.

In time, even the inconspicuous houses that tormerly
seemed so much alike become differentiated and, like the
separate blocks, gain individualities ot their own, though
you may never know who are the owners. They mean
something to you, just as do so many ot the regular up-town

THE WALK UP-TOWN

Olympia Jackies on shore leav

walkers whose names you
do not know ; line old com-
fortable places m any of
them are, even though the
architects of their day did
try hard to make them un-
comfortable w i t h high,
steep steps and other absurd-
ities. When a " For Sale "
sign comes to one of these
you feel sorry, and finally
when one day in your walk up-town you see it irrevocably
going the way of all brick, with a contractor's sign out in front,
blatantly boasting of his wickedness, you resent it as a per-
sonal loss.

It seems all wrong to be pulling down those thick
walls; exposing the privacy of the inside of the house, its
arrangement of rooms and fireplaces, and the occupant's taste
in color and wall decorations. Two young women who take
the walk up-town always look the other way when they pass
this sad display ; they say it's unfair to take advantage of the
house. Soon there will be a deep pit there with putiing
derricks, the sidewalk closed, and show-bills boldly scream-
ing. And by the time we have returned from the next so-
journ out of town there will be an office-building of ever-
so-many stories or another great hotel. Already the sign
there will tell about it.

NEW YORK SKETCHES

\\)u quicken your pace as ytni draw near the Park; some
of the up-town walkers who li\c along here have already
reached the end ot their journey and are running up the
steps taking out door-keys. The little boy in knickerbock-
ers vv^ho seems responsible tor lighting Fifth Avenue has
already begun his zigzag trip along the street ; soon the
long double rows ot lights will seem to meet in perspective.
A few belated children are being hurried home bv their
maids trt)m dancing-school ; their white trocks sticking out
beneath their coats gleam in the halt light. Cabs and car-
riages with diners in them go spinning bv, the coachmen
whip up to pass ahead ot vou at the street-crossing ; vou
catch a gleam of men's shirt-bosoms within and the light
fluffiness of women, with the perfume ot gloves. Fewer
people are left on the sidewalks now — those that are look
at their watches. The sun is well set by the time you
reacli the Plaza, but down Fitty-ninth Street you can see
long bars of atter-glow across the Hudson.

In the halt-dark, under the Park trees, comes a group
of Italian laborers; their hob -nailed shoes clatter on the
cement-walk, their blue blouses and red neckerchiets stand
out against the almost black of the trees ; thev, too, are
walking home for the night. The Walk Up-town is fin-
ished and the show is over tor to-day.

THE CROSS STREETS

^w^

Down near the eastern end of the street.

THE CROSS STREETS

A CITY should be laid out like a golf links ; except for
an occasional compromise in the interest of art or
expediency it should be allowed to follow the natural topog-
raphy of the country.

But this is not the way the matter was regarded by the
commission appointed in 1807 to layout the rural regions
beyond New York, which by that time had grown up to
the street now called Houston, and then called North Street,
probably because it seemed so far north — though, to be sure,
there were scattered hamlets and villages, with remembered
and forgotten names, here and there, all the way up to the

NEW YORK SKETCHES

historic town ot Haarlem. The commissioners saw lit to
mark otf straight street at'ter shameless straight street with
the uncompromising regularity of a huge foot-ball held, and
gave them numbers like the white tive-vard lines, instead of
names. They paid little heed to the original arrangements
of nature, which had done very well bv the island, and still
less to man's previous provisions, spontaneously made along
the lines ot least resistance — except, notably, in the case of
Greenwich, which still remains whimsically individual and
village-like despite the attempt to swallow it whole by the
" new " citv system.

This plan, calling tor endless grading and levelling, re-
mains to this day the official citv chart as now lived down
to in the perpendicular gorges cut through the hills of solid
rock seen on approaching Manhattan Field ; but the com-
missioners' marks have not invariablv been followed, or
New York would have still tewer of its restful green spots
to gladden the eye, nor even Central Park, indeed, for that
space also is checkered in their chart with streets and ave-
nues as thicklv as in the crowded regions above and below it.

However, anyone can criticise creative work, whether it
be the plan ot a play or a citv, but it is difficult tt) create.
Not manv ot us to-dav who complacentlv patronize the hon-
orable commissioners would have made a better job ot it if
we had lived at that time — and had been consulted. For at
that time, we must bear in mind, even more important tor-

eign luxuries than golt were not highlv regarded in Amer-

.|L/i^<_

'\^

'^f^

^•^mM"

lis:

!'"

f.y.CP^^^yy^:

wmm"^

~^r^^<^.

V*,

NEW YORK SKETCHES

ica, and America had quite recently thrown ofF a foreisjn
power. That in itself explains the matter. Our country
was at the extreme ot its reaction from monarchical ideals,
and democratic simplicity was running into the ground. In
our straining to he rid (A all artificiality we were ousting
art and heautv too. It was so in mt)st parts ot our awkward
young nation ; hut especially did the materialistic tendency
of this dreary disagreeahle period manifest itself here in com-
mercial New York, where Knickerbocker families were
lopping the " V^ans " off their names — to the amusement of
contemporaneous aristocracy in older, more conseryatiye
sections of the country, and in some cases to the sincere
regret of their present-day descendants.

Now, the present-day descendants have, in some in-
stances, restored the original spelling on their visiting cards ;
in other cases they have consoled themselves with hyphens,
and most of them, it is safe to say, are bravely recovering
from the tendency to over-simplicity. But the present-day
city corporation of Cireater New York could not, if it so
desired, put a Richmond Hill back where it formerly stood,
southwest of Washington Square and skirted by ]\Iinetta
River — any more than it can bring to life Aaron Hin-r and
the other historical personages who at various times occu-
pied the hospitable villa which stood on the top of it and
which is also gone to dust. They cannot restore the Collect
Pond, which was filled up at such great expense, and covered
by the Tombs prison and which, it is held by those who

An Evening View of St. Paul's Church.

NEW YORK SKETCHES

ought to kiu)w, wiHild liave made an admirable centre of a
fine park much needed in that section, as the citv has since
learned. Thev canin)t re-establish Ltive Lane, which used
to lead from the piipular Hloomingdale road ( Broadway),
nearly through the site ot tlie building where this book is
published, and so westward to Chelsea village.

Thev wanted to be verv practical, those commissioners
of I 807. Thev prided themselves upon it. Naturally they
did not fancv eccentricities ot landscape and could not tole-
rate sentimental names. " Love Lane ? What nonsense,"
said these extremely dignified and quite humorless offi-
cials ; " this is to be Twenty-hrst Street." They wanted to
be verv practical, and so it seems the greater pity that with
several vears of dignified deliberation thev were so unpracti-
cal as to make that notorious mistake ot providing posterity
with such a paucitv oi thoroughtares in the directions in
which most o{ the traffic was bound to fiow — that is, up and
down, as practical men might have toreseen, and ot running
thick ranks of straight streets, as numerouslv as possible,
across the narrow island trom river tt) river, where but few
were needed : thus causing the north and south thorous^h-
fares, which thev have dubbed avenues, ro be swamped with
heterogeneous traffic, complicating the problem tor later-day
rapid transit, giving future generations another cause tor crit-
icism, and furnishing a set ot cross streets the like oi which
cannot be found in anv other citv o{ the wttrld.

THE CROSS STREETS

These are the streets which visitors to New York
always remark ; the characteristic cross streets of the typical
up-town region of long regular rows of rectangular resi-

The sights and smells of the water-front are here too.

dences that look so much alike, with steep similar steps
leading up to sombre similar doors and a doctor's sign in
every other window. Bleak, barren, echoing streets where
during the long, monotonous mornings " rags-an-bot'l " are
called for, and bananas and strawberries are sold from
wagons by aid of resonant voices, and nothing else is heard

NEW YORK SKETCHES

except at long intervals the welcome postman's whistle or
the occasional slamming of a carriage door. Meantime the
sun gets around to the north side of the street, and the air-
ing ot babies and tox-terriers g(^es on, while down at the
corner one elevated train after another approaches, roars, and
rumbles away in the distance all day long until at last the
men begin coming home from business. These are the or-
dinarv unromantic streets on which live so few New York-
ers in fiction (it is so easy to put them on the Avenue or
Gramercy Park or Washington Square), but on which most
of them seem to live in real life. A slice of all New York
with all its lavers ot society and all its mixed interests may
be seen in a walk along one ot these typical streets which
stretch across the island as straight and stiff as iron grooves
and waste not an inch in their progress from one river, out
into which they have gradually encroached, to the other
river into which also they extend. It is a short walk, the
island is so narrow.

Away over on the ragged eastern edge of the cit\' it
starts, out of a ferry-house or else upon the abrupt water-
front with river waves slapping against the solid bulwark.
Here are open, free sky, wide horizon, the smell oi the
water, or else of the neighboring gas-house, brisk breezes
and sea-gulls flapping lazily. The street's progress begins
between an open lot where rival gangs of East Side boys
meet to right, on one side, and, on the other, a great
roomy lumber-yard, with a very small brick building for

An Old Landmark on the Lower West Side.
(Junction of Canal and Laight Streets.)

NEW YORK SKETCHES

an office. A dingy saloon, ot coiinse, stands on the corner
of the tirst so-called avenue. .Away over here the avenues
have letters instead of numbers tor names. Across the wav
— and it is easily crossed, tor on some ot these remote
thorouglifares the traffic is so scarce that ticcasional blades
of grass come up between the cobble-stones — is a weather-
boarded and weather-beaten old house of sad mien, whose
curtainless gable windows stare and stare out toward the
river, thinking ot' other days. . . . Some warehouses
and a factory or two are usually along here, with buzz-
saws snarling ; then another lettered avenue or two and
the lirst of the elevated railroads roars overhead. This is
now several blocks nearer the splendor of Fifth Avenue, but
the neighborhood does not look it, for here is the thick of
the tenement district, with dingy tire-escapes above, and be-
low in the street, bumping against everyone, thousands of
city children, each of them with at least one lung. The
traffic is more crowded now, the street darker, the air not so
good. Above are numerous windows sho\\ing the subdi-
visions where many families live — very comfortably and
happily in numerous cases ; \ou could not induce them to
move into the sunshine and open ot the country. Here, on
the ground fioor of the flat, is a grocery with sickening
fruit out in front ; on one side ot it a doctor's sign, on the
other an undertaker's. The window shows a three-toot
coffin lined with soiled white satin, much admired by the
wise-eyed little girls.

THE CROSS STREETS

'/jj>i\ IMS] SembHiS

- "<iV*"'l

Up Beekman Street. Each . . . has to change in the greatest possible hurr>- fn.m block to block.

As each of these succeeding avenues is crossed, with its
rush and roar ot up-town and down-town traffic, the neigh-
borhood is said to be more "respectable," meaning more
expensive ; more ot the women on the sidewalks wear hats
and paint, and there are fewer children without shoes ; pri-
vate houses are becoming more frequent ; babies less fre-

NEW YORK SKETCHES

quent ; there is more pretence and less spontaneity. The
tiats are now apartments ; they have ornate, hideous entrances,
which add only to the rent. . . . St) on until here is
Madison Avenue and a whole block ot private houses, varied
only by an occasional stable, pleasant, clean-looking little
stables, preferable architecturally to the houses in some cases.
And here at last is Fifth Avenue ; and it seems miles away
from the tenements, sparkling, gay, happy or pretending to
be, with streams of carefully dressed people flowing in both
directions ; New York's wonderful women. New York's
well-built, tight-collared young men; shining carriages with
good-looking horses and well-kept harness, mixed with big,
dirty trucks whose drivers seem unconscious ot the incon-
gruity, but quite well aware ot their own superior bumping
ability. Dodging in and out miraculously are a tew bicy-
cles. . . . And now when the other side of the avenue
is reached the rest is an anti-climax. Here is the trades-
people's entrance to the great impressive house on the cor-
ner, so near that other entrance on the avenue, but so far
that it will never be reached by that white-aproned butcher-
boy's tamily — in this generation, at least. Beyond the con-
servatory is a bit of backyard, a pathetic little New ^'ork
yard, but very green and cheertul, bounded at the rear by a
high peremptory wall which seems to keep the ambitious
brownstone next door troni elbowing its way up toward the
avenue.

These next houses, however, are quite fine and impres-

THE CROSS STREETS

'1-^

*^^^^^^^^^^F_

->i()V^otr!r]-

Under the Approach to Brooklyn Bridge.

sive, too, and they are not so alike as they seem at hrst ; in
fact, it is quite remarkable how much individuality architects
have learned ot late years to put into the eighteen or twenty
feet they have to deal with. The monotony is varied occa-
sionally with an English basement house or a tall wrought-
iron gateway and a hood over the entrance. Here is a

NEW YORK SKETCHES

white Colonial doorway with side-lights. The son of the
house studied art, perhaps, and persuaded his father to make
this kind of iniprt)veinent, thoLigh the old gentleman was
inclined to copy the rococo style ot the railroad president
opposite. . . . Half-way down the hlock, unless a \yed-
ding or a tea is taking place, the street is as quiet as Wall
Street on a Sunday. Behind us can he seen the streams
of people tiowing up and dtiwn P'itth Avenue.

By the time Sixth Avenue is crossed hrick frequently
come into use in place ot hrownstone, and there are not
only doctors' signs now, but " Robes et Manteaux " are an-
nounced, or sometimes, as on that ugly iron balcony, merely
Madame somebody. By this time also there have already
appeared on some ot the newel-posts by the door-bell,
" Boarders," or " Furnished Rt)oms " — modestly written on
a mere slip oi paper, as though it had been deemed unneces-
sary to shout the words out tor the neighborhood to hear.
In there, back of these lace- curtains, yellow, thougii not
with age, is the parlor — the boarding-house parlor — with
tidies which always come off and small gilt chairs which
generally break, and wax wreaths under glass, like cheeses
under fiy-screens in country groceries. In the place ot honor
hangs the crayon portrait ot the dear deceased, in an ornate
frame. But most ot' the bt)arders never go there, except to
pay their bills ; down in the basement dining-room is where
they congregate, you can see them now through the grated
window, at the tables. Here, on the corner, is the little

7«

THE CROSS STREETS

Chinatown.

tailor-shop or laundry, which is usually found in the low
building back of that facing the avenue, which latter is al-
ways a saloon unless it is a drug-store ; on the opposite
corner is still another saloon — rivals very likely in the Tam-
many district as well as in business, with a policy-shop or a
pool-room on the Hoor above, as all the neighbors know,
though the local good government club cannot stop it.
Here is the " family entrance " which no family ever enters.
Then come more apartments and more private residences,
not invariably passi', more boarding-houses, many, manv
boarding-houses, theatrical boarding-houses, students' board-
ing-houses, foreign boarding-houses ; more small business

NEW YORK SKETCHES

places, and so on across various mongrel avenues until here
is the region of warehouses and piano factories and finallj'
even railway tracks with large astonishing trains ot cars.
Cross these tracks and vou are bevond the city, in the sub-
urbs, as much as the lateral edges ot this city can have sub-
urbs ; yet this is only the distance ot a long golf-hole trom
residences and urbanity. Here are stock-yards with squeal-
ing pigs, awful smells, deep, black mire, and then a long
dock reaching far out into the Hudson, with lazy river
barges flopping along-side it, and dock-rats tishing off the
end — a hot, hateful walk if ever your business or pleasure
calls you out there oi' a summer afternoon. There the typi-
cal up-town cross street ends its dreary existence.

DowN-TOWN it is so different.

Down-town — " 'way down-town," in the vernacular —
in latitude far south ot homes and peace and contemplation,
where everything is business and dollars and hardness, and
the streets might well be economically straight, and rigor-
ously business-like, they are incongruously crooked, running
hither and thither in a dreamy, unpractical manner, begin-
ning where they please and ending where it suits them best,
in a narrow, Old-World way, despite their astonishing, New-
World architecture. Numbers would do well enough for

names down here, but instead ot concise and business-like

THE CROSS STREETS

i.' --z-^^ TT

It Still remains whimsically individual and village-like.

street-signs, the himp-posts show quaint, incongruous names,

sentimental names, poetic names sometimes, because these

streets were born and not made.

They were born of the needs or whims of the early

population, including cows, long before the little western

city became self-conscious about its incipient greatness, and

ordered a ready-made plan for its future growth. It was

too late tor the painstaking commissioners down here. One

little settlement of houses had gradually reached out toward

another, each with its own line of streets or paths, until

finally they all grew together solidly into a city, not caring

whether they dovetailed or not, and one or the other or

both of the old road names stuck fast. The Beaver's

Path, leading from the Parade (which afterward became the

NEW YORK SKETCHES

Bowling CJreen ) over to the swuinpv inlet which hv drain-
age became the sheep pasture and later was named Bruad
Street, is still called Beaver Street tt) this da\ . The Maiden
Lane, where New York girls used to stroll (and in still more
primitive times used to do the washing) along-side the
stream which gave the street its present winding shape and
low grading, is still called Maiden Lane, though probably
the only strollers in the modern iostlina; crowd ak)na; this
street, now the heart of the diamond district, are the special
detectives who have a personal acquaintance \\ ith everv dis-
tinguished jewellery crook in the country, and guartl " the
Lane," as they call it, so carefully that not in tifteen years
has a member of the profession crossed the " dead-line "
successfully. There is Bridge Street, which no longer has
any stream to bridge ; Dock Street, where there is no dock ;
Water Street, once upon the river-front but now separated
from the water by several blocks and much enormously
valuable real estate ; and Wall Street, which now seems to
lack the wooden wall by which Governor Stuyvesant sought
to keep New Englanders out of town. His efforts were of
no permanent value.

Nowadays they seem such narrow, crowded little run-
ways, these down-town cross streets; so crowded that men
and horses share the middle of them together ; so narrow
that from the windy tt)ps of the irregular white cliffs which
line them you must lean far over in order to see the busy
little men at the dry asphalt bottom, far below, rapidly

THE CROSS STREETS

A Fourteenth Street Tree.

crawling hither and thither Hke excitable ants whose hill has
been disturbed. And in modern times thev seem dark and
gloomy, near the bottom, even in the clear, smokeless air of
Manhattan, so that lights are turned on sometimes at mid-day,
for at best the sun gets into these valleys tor onlv a few min-
utes, so high have the tall buildings grown. But they were
not narrow in those old days of the Dutch ; seemed quite
the right \\'idtli, no doubt, to gossip across, from one Dutch
stoop to another, at close of day, with the after-supper pipe
when the chickens and children had gone to sleep and there

NEW YORK SKETCHES

was nothing to interrupt the peaceful, puffing conversation
except the lazy clattering hell ot an occasional cow coming
home late for milking. Nor were thev gloomy in those
days, for the sun found its way unohstructed tt)r hours at a
time, when they were lined with small low-storied houses
which the family occupied upstairs, with business below.
Everyone went home tor luncheon in those days — a pleasant,
simple system adhered to in this city, it is said, until com-
paratively recent times by more than one family whose pres-
ent representatives require tor their happiness two or three
homes in various other parts ot the world in addition to
their town ln)use. This latter does not contain a shop on
the ground flour. It is situated far up the island, at some
point beyond the marsh where their forebears went duck-
shooting (now Washington Square), or in some cases even
beyond the site of the second kissing bridge, over which the
Boston Post road crossed the small stream where Seventy-
seventh Street now runs.

Now, being such a narrow island, none of its cross
streets can be very long, as was piointed out, even at the
city's greatest breadth. The highest cross-street number I
ever found \\as 742 East Twelfth. But these down-town
cross streets are much shorter, even those that succeed in
getting all the way across w^ithout stopping; thev are so
abruptly short that each little street has to change in the
greatest possible hurry from block to block, like vaudeville
performers, in order to show all the features ot a self-re-

Such as broad Twenty-third Street with its famous shops.

NEW ^()RK SKETCHES

specting cross street in the business section. Hence the
sudden contrasts. For instance, down at one end of a cer-
tain well-known business street may be seen st^nie low
houses of sturdy red brick, beginning to look antique now
with their solid walls and visible roofs. They line an open,
sunny spot, with the smell ot spices and coftee in the air.
A market was situated here oyer a hundred years ago, and
this broad, open space still has the atmosphere of a market-
place. The sights and smells ot the water-tront are here,
too, ships and stevedores unloading tiiem, sailors lounging
before dingy drinking-places, and across the cobble-stones is
a ferry-house, with " truck " wagons on the way back to
Long Island waiting t(M- the gates to open, tlie unmistakable
country mud, so ditferent trom city mire, still sticking in
cakes to the spokes, notwithstanding the night spent in
town. Nothing worth remarking, perhaps, in all this, but
that the name ot the street is Wall Street, and all this seems so
different from the WM Street of a stone's-throw inland, with
crowded walks, dapper business men, creased trousers, tall,
steel buildings, express elevators, messengers dashing in and
out, tickers busy, and all the hum and suppressed excitement
of the Wall Street the world knows, as different and as sud-
denly different as the change that is telt in the \ery air upon
stepping across through the noise and shabby rush ot lower
Sixth Avenue into the enchanted peace of Greenwich village,
with sparrows chirping in the wistaria vines that cover old-
fashioned balconies on streets slanting at unexpected angles.

A Cross Street at ^^adison Square.

NEW YORK SKKTCHES

The tvpit-al part oi these dcnvn-towii cross streets is, of
course, tliat latter f^art, the section more or less near Hroad-
wav, and crcnvded to surtbcation with great husinesses in
"7 ' " fin Lireat liuildin'';s, conimon-

1\ k II o \\ n as hideous
American skv - scrapers.
This is the real down-
town to most ot' the men
who are down there, and
who are too Inisv think-
ing a h o u t what tliese
streets mean to each of
them to - day to ht)ther
much w i t h w h a t the
streets were in the past,
or even to notice liow the
nutdern tangle of spars
and rigging looks as seen
dow n at the end of the
street fro m the otfice
window .

Across Twenty-fourth Street — Madison Square wlien tlie
Dewey Arch was there.

Of course, all these men in the tall huildings, whether
possessed ot creative genius or ot intelligence enough only
to run one ot the elevators, are alike Philistines to those
persons who tind nothing romantic or interesting in our
modern, much-maligned skv-scrapers, which have also heen
called " monuments of modern materialism," and even worse

THE CROSS STREETS

names, no douht, because they are unprecedented and unaca-
demic, probably, as much as because ugly and unrestrained.
To many ot us, liowever, shameless as it may be to confess
it, these down-town streets are fascinating enough for what
they are to-day, even it thev had no past to make them all
the more charming ; and these erect, jubilant voung build-
ings, whether beautitul or not, seem quite interesting — from
their bright tops, where, tar above the turmoil and confu-
sion, A-Irs. Janitor sits sewing in the sun while the children
play hide-and-seek behind water-butts and air-shafts (there
is no danger oi tailing off, it is a relief to know, because the
root is walled in like a garden), dt)wn to the dark bottom
where are the safe-deposit vaults, and the trusty old watch-
men, and the oblong boxes with great tt)rtunes in them,
along-side ot wills that may cause tamily tights a few years
later, and add to the atfluence ot certain lawyers in the
otfices overhead. Deep down, thirty or forty feet under the
crowded sidewalk, the stokers shovel coal under bia: boilers
all day, and electricians do interestina; tricks with switch-
boards, somewhat as in the hold ot a modern battle-ship.
In the many tiers ot floors overhead are the men with the
minds that make these high buildings necessary and make
down-town what it is, with their dreams and schemes, their
courage and imagination, their trust and distrust in the
knowledge and io-norance of other human beings which are
the means by which they bring about great successes and
great failures, and have all the fun of playing a game, with

NEW YORK SKETCHES

the peace of conscience and self-satisfliction which come
from hard work and manlv sweat.

Here during daylight, or part of it, they are moving
about, far up on high ov down near the teeming surface, in
and out oi the numerous subdivisions termed offices, until
tinallv thev call the game off for the day, go down in the
express elevator, out upon the narrow little streets, and turn
north toward the upper part ot the island. And each, like
a homing pigeon, tinds his own division or subdivision in a
long, solid block of divisions called homes, in the part ot
town where run the manv rows ot even, similar streets.

These two views across two parts ot New York, the two
most typical parts, deal chieflv with what a stranger might
see and feel, who came and looked and departed. \"erv
little has been said to show what the cross-streets mean to
those who are in the town and ot it, who know the town
and like it — either because their "father's father's father"
did, or else because their work or tate has cast them upon
this island and kept them there until it no longer seems a
desert island. The latter class, indeed, when once thev have
learned to love the town oi' their adoption, frequently be-
come its warmest enthusiasts, even though they mav have
held at one time that citv contentedness could not be had

without the symmetry, softness, and repose ot older civiliza-

NEW YORK SKETCHES

tions, or even that true happiness was impossible when
walled in hv stone and steel from the sight and smell oi'
"•reen tields and running; brooks.

He who loves New ^'ork loves its streets tor what they
have been and are to him, not tor what thev may seem to
thiise who do not use them. Thev who knt)w the town
best become as homesick when awav trom it tor the straight-
ness of the well-kept streets up-town as tor the crookedness
and quaintness ot the noisv thoroughfares below. The
straightness, thev point out complacently, is very convenient
tor getting about, just as the numbering system makes it easy
for strangers. On the walk up-town thev enjoy looking
down upon the expected unexpectedness of the odd little
cross streets, which twist and turn or end suddenly in blank
walls, or are crossed by passageways in mid-air, like the
Bridge ot Sighs, down I'ranklin Street, from the Criminal
Court-house to the Tombs. But farther along in their walk
they are just as ft)nd of looking down the perspective of the
straight side streets from the central spine of Fifth Avenue
past block after block of New York homes, awav down be-
yond the almost-converging rows of even lamp-posts to the
Hudson and the purple Palisades of Jersey, with the glorious
gleam and glow oi' the sunset; while the energetic "L"
trains scurry past, one after another, trailing beautiful sw iris
of steam and carrviny; other New Workers to other homes.
None of this could be enjoyed if the cross streets tied knots
in themselves like those in London and some American

THE CROSS STREETS

As it Looks on a Wet Night — The Circle, Fifty-ninth Street and Eighth Avenue.

cities. Even outsiders appreciate these characteristic New
York vistas ; and nearly everv poet who comes to town dis-
covers its symbolic incongruity atresh and sings it to those
who have enjoyed it before he was born, just as most young
writers ot prose feel called upon to turn their attention the
other way and unearth the great East Side ot New York.
There is no such thing as a typical cross street to New

NEW YORK SKETCHES

^ (.)rkers. Individuallv, each thorouglitlirc departs as widelv
from the type as the men who walk along them difi-"er from
the hgiire known in certain parts of this countr\ as the
typical New Worker. In New "\'ork there is no typical New
Yorker. These so-called similar streets, which look so much
alike to a yisitor driying up Fifth Ayenue, end so yery dif-
ferently. Some of them, for instance, after heginning their
decline toward the riyer and obliyion, are redeemed to re-
spectability, not to say exclusiyeness, again, like some of the
streets in the small Twentieths running out into what was
formerly the yillage of Chelsea ; and those who know New
York — eyen \yhen standing where the Twentieth Streets are
tainted with Sixth Avenue — are cognizant ot this fact, just
as they are of the peace and green campus and academic
architecture of the Episcopal Theological Seminary away
oyer there, and of the thirty-foot lawns of London Terrace,
far down along West Twenty-third Street.

There are other residence streets which do not decline
at all, but are solidly impressive and expensive all the way
over to the river, like those from Central Park to Riverside
Drive. And your old New "Wirker does not feel depressed,
by their conventional similarity, their lack of individuality;
he likes to think that these streets and lunises no K)nger
seem so unbearably new as they were only a short time ago,
but in some cases are at last acquiring the atmosphere of
home and getting rid of the odor of a real-estate project.
Then, of course, so many cross streets would refuse to be

THE CROSS STREETS

Hideous high buildings.
Looking east from Central Park at night.

classed as typical because they run through squares or oarks,
or into reservoirs or other streets, or jump over railroad
tracks bv means of viaducts, burrow under avenues by means
of tunnels, or end abruptly at the top of a hill on a hi^h
embankment ot interesting masonry, as at the eastern termi-
nus ot Forty-hrst Street — a spot which never feels like New
York at all to me.

Some notice should be taken also of those all-important

NEW YORK SKETCHES

up-town cross streets where business has eaten out residence
in streaks, as moths devour clothes, such as broad Twenty-
third Street with its famous shops, and narrow Twenty-
eighth Street, with its numerous cheap table d'/wtes, each of
which is the best in town; and 125th Street, which is a
Harlem combination ot both. These are the streets by
which surface-car passengers are transferred all over the citv.
These are the streets upon which those \\ ho have grown up
with New York, if they have paid attention to its growth
as well as their own, delight to meditate. Even compara-
tively young old New Yorkers can say " I remember when "
of memorable evenings in the old Academy ot Music in
Fourteenth Street off Union Square, and of the days when
Delmonico's had got as tar up-town as Fourteenth Street
and Fifth iVvenue.

Furthermore, it could easily be shown that, for those
who love old New York, there is plenty ot local historical
association along these same straight, unromantic-looking
cross streets — for those who know how to hnd it. For that
matter one might go still turther and hold that there \\ inild
not be so much antiquarian delight in New York it these
streets were not new and straight and non-committal look-
ing. If, for instance, the old Union Road, which was the
roundabout, wet-weather route to Greenwich \illage, had
not been cut up and mangled by a merciless city plan there
wouldn't be the fun of tracing it by projecting corners and
odd angles of houses along West Twelt'th Street between

THE CROSS STREETS

Fitth and Sixth Avenues. It would be merelv an open, or-
dinary street, concealing nothing, and no more exciting to
follow than Pearl Street down-town — and not halt so
crooked or historical as Pearl Street. There would not be
that odd, pocket-like courtway called Mulligan " Place,"
with a dimlv lighted entrance leading off Sixth Avenue be-
tween Tenth and Eleventh Streets. Nor would there be
that still more interesting triangular remnant ot an old Jew-
ish burving-ground over the way, behind the old Grapevine
Tavern. For either the whole cemetery would have been
allowed to remain on Union Road i or Street i, which is not
likelv, or el>e thev would have removed all the graves and
covered the entire site with buildings, as was the case with a
dozen other burvin^-srounds here and there. It the com-
missioners had not had their wav we could not have all those
inner rows ot houses to explore, like the " ^^ eaver's Row,"
once near the Great Kiln Road, but now buried behind
a Sixth Avenue store between Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Streets, and entered, it entered at all, bv way of a dark, ill-
smelling alley. Xor would the negro quarter, a little farther
up-town, have its inner rows which seem so appropriate for
negro quarters, especially the whitewashed courts opening
off Thirtieth Street, where may be tound, in these secluded
spots, trees and seats under them, with old, turbanned mam-
mies smoking pipes and looking much more like Richmond
darkies than those one expects to see two blocks trom Daly's
Theatre. Colonel Carter of Cartersville could not have

NEW YORK SKETCHES

tound such an interesting New "\'ork residence if the com-
missioners had not had their way, nor could he have en-
tered it by a tunnel-like passage under tlie house o[-iposite
the Tenth Street studios. Even (Greenwich would not be
quite vso entertaining without those permanent marks oi the
conflict between village and city which resulted in separating
West Eleventh Street so tar troni Tenth, and in twisting
Fourth Street around farther and farther until it hnallv ends
in despair in Thirteenth Street. If the commissioners had
not had their way we should have had no " Down Love
Lane " written by Mr. Janvier.

Looked at from the point of view of use and knowledge,
every street, like every person, gains a distinct personality,
some being merely more strongly distinguished than others.
And just as every human being, whatever his name or his
looks may be, continues to win more or less sympathy the
more you know of him and his history and his ambitions, so
with these streets, and their checkered careers, their sudden
changes from decade to decade — or in still less time, in our
American cities, their transformation from farm land to
suburban road, and then to fashionable city street, and then
to small business and then to great business. Such, after all,
is the stuff of which abiding city charm is made, not of
plans and architecture.

RURAL NEW YORK CITY

THERE is pretty good snipe shooting within the city
limits ot New York, and I have heard that an occa-
sional trout still rises to the fly in one or two spots along a
certain stream — which need not be made better known than
it is already, though it can hardly be worth whipping
much longer at any rate.

A great many ducks, however, are still shot every season
in the citv, by those who know where to go for them ; and
as tor interior sport, like rabbits — it you include them as
game — on certain days ot the year probably more gunners
and dogs are out atter rabbits within the limits of Greater
New York than in any region of equal extent in the world,
though to be sure the bags brought in hardly compare with
those ot certain parts of Australia or some ot our \\'estern
States. Down toward Far Rockaway, a little this side of
the salt marshes of Jamaica Bay, in the hedges and cabbage-
patches ot the " truck " farms, there is plenty of good cover

NEW YORK SKETCHES

for rabbits, as well as in the brush-piles and pastures of the
rolling Borough of Richmond on Staten Island, and the for-
ests and stone fences ot the hillv Bronx, up around Pelham
Bay Park for instance. But the gunners must keep out (.^f
the parks, of course, though nianv idtiquitous little boys with
snares dc^ not.

In such parts of the city, except when No Trespassing
signs prevent, on any day ot the open season scores of men
and youths may be seen whose work and homes are gener-
ally in the densest parts of the city, respectable citizens from
the extreme east and west sides ot Manhattan, artisans and
clerks, salesmen and small shopkeepers, who, quite unex-
pectedly in some cases, share the ancient tret and longing of
the primitive man in comnion with those other New York-
ers who can go farther out on Long Island or farther up
into New York State to satisfy it. To be sure, the former
do not get as many shots as the latter, but they get the out-
doors and the exercise and the return to nature, which is
the main thing. And the advantage of going shooting in
Greater New York is that you can tramp until too dark to
see, and yet get back in time to dine at home, thus satisfy-
ing an appetite acquired in the open with a dinner cooked
in the city.

Once a certain young family went off to a far corner of
Greater New York to attack the perennial summer problem.
By walking through a hideously suburban village with a
beautifully rural name they found, just over the brow of a

Flushing Volunteer Fire Department Responding to a Fire Alarm.

NEW YORK SKETCHES

hill, quite as a friend had told thein they would, tucked
away all alone in a green glade beside an ancient forest, a
charniing little diamond -paiied, lattice-windowed cottage,
covered thick with vines outside, and yet supplied with
modern plumbing within. It seemed too good to be true.
There was no distinctly front yard or back yard, not even a
public road in sight, and no neighbt)rs to bother them ex-
cept the landlord, who lived in the one house near bv and was
very agreeable. All through the close season they enjoyed
the whistling of quail at their breakfast ; in their afternoon
walks, squirrels and rabbits and uncommon song-birds were
too common to be remarked ; and once, within forty yards
of the house, great consternation was caused by a black snake,
though it was not black snakes but mosquitoes that made
them look elsewhere next year, and taught them a life-lesson
in regard to English lattice-windows and American mosquito-
screens.

But until the mosquitoes became so persistent it seemed
— this country-place within a city, or rus in urbc, as they
probably enjoyed calling it — an almost perfect solution of
the problem for a small family whose head iiad to be within
commuting distance of down-town. For though so reiiune,
it was not inaccessible; two railroads and a trolley line were
just over the dip of the hill that hid them, so that there was
time for the voung man of the house to linger w ith his
family at breakfast, which was served out-of-doors, with no
more objectionable witnesses than the thrushes in the hedges.

104

RURAL NEW YORK CITY

A Bit of Farm Land in the Heart of Greater New York.
"Acre after acre, farm after farm, and never a sign of city in siyht."

And then, too, there was time to get exercise in the after-
noon before dinner. " It seemed an ideal spot," to quote
their account ot it, " except that on our walks, just as we
thought that we had found some sequestered dell where no-
body had come since the Indians left, we would be pretty
sure to hear a slight rustle behind us, and there — not an
Indian but a Tammany policeman would break through the
thicket, with startling white gloves and gleaming brass but-
tons, looking exactly like the policemen in the Park. Of
course he would continue on his beat and disappear in a mo-
ment, but by that time we had forgotten to listen to the
birds and things, and the distant hum of the trolley would
break in and remind us of all things we have wanted to forget."

NEW YORK SKETCHES

In ;i wav, that is rather typical at most ot the ruralitv
found within the houndaries ot these modern asi:y;ret>;ations or
trusts of large and small towns, and intervening country,
held together ( nuM'e or less) hy one name, under one munic-
ipal government, and called a " city " by legislature. There
is plenty that is not at all city-like within the city walls —
called limits — there is plenty ot nature, hut in most cases
those wanting to commune with it are reminded that it is no
longer within the domain ot nature. The city has stretched
out its hand, and the mark ot the beast can usuallv be seen.

You can tind not only rural seclusion and bucolic sim-
plicity, but the rudeness and crudeness ot the wilderness and
primeval forest; indeed, even torest fires have been known
in Greater New York. But the trouble is that so otten the
bucolic simplicity has cleverly advertised lots staked out
across it ; the rural seclusion shows a couple oi tactory chim-
neys on the near horizt)n. The tt)rest hre was put out by
the fire department.

There are numerous peaceful duck-ponds in the Borough

of Queens, for instance, as muddy and peaceful as ever you

saw, but so many of them are lighted by gas every evening.

Besides the fisheries, there is profitable ovster-dredging in

several sections of this city ; and in at least one place it can

be seen by electric light. There are many potato-patches

patrolled by the police.

1 06

RURAL NEW YORK CITY

One of the Farmhouses that Have Come to Town.
The old Durjea House, Flushiiig^, oiite used as a head-quarters for Hessian officers.

Not tar from the geographical centre ot the city there
are fields where, as all who have ever commuted to and from
the north shore of Long Island must rememher, German
women may be seen everv day in the tilling season, working
away as industriously as the peasants of Europe, blue skirts,
red handkerchiefs about their heads, and all ; while not far

NEW YORK SKETCHES

away, at frequent intervals, passes a whining, thumping trol-
ley-car, marked Brooklyn Bridge.

In aJiother quarter, on ;i dreary, desolate waste, neither

East End of Uurj-ea House, where the Cow is Stabled.

farm land, nor citv, nor village, there stands an old weather-
beaten hut, long, low, patched up and tumbled down, with
an old soap-box for a front doorstep — all beautifully toned
bv time, the kind amateurs like to sketch, when found tar
away from home in their travels. The thing that recalls
the city in this case, rather startlingly, is a rudely lettered
sign, with the S's turned the wrong way, offering lots tor
sale in CJreater New York.

It is not necessary to go far away from the beaten paths

1 08

RURAL NEW YORK CITY

of travel in Greater New York to witness any of these
scenes ot the comedy, sometimes tragedy, brought about by
the contending forces of city and country. Most of what

The Old Water-power Mill from the Rear of the Old Country Cross-roads Store.

has been cited can be observed from car-windows. For that
matter, somewhat similar incongruity can be found in all of
our modern, legally enlarged cities, London, with the hedges
and gardens ot Hampstead Heath, and certain parts of the
Surrey Side, or Chicago, with itvS broad stretches of prairie
and farms — ^the subject of so many American newspaper
jokes a few vears ago.

But New York — and this is another respect in which
it is different from other cities — our great Greater New

109

NEW YORK SKETCHES

The Old Countr>- Cross-roafi<; Store. Established 1828.
Ill the background is the old water-power mill.

York, which is better known as having the most densely
populated tenement districts in the world, can show places
that are more truly rural than any other city ot modern
times, places where the town does not succeed in obtruding
itself at all. From Hampstead Heath, green and delightful
as it is, every now and then the gilded cross ot St. Paul's
may be seen gleaming far below through the trees. And in
Chicago, bucolic as certain sections ot it may be, one can
spy the towers of the city for miles away, across the prairie;
even when down in certaiti wild, murderous-looking ravines
there is ever on high the appalling cloud ot sott-coal smoke.
But out in the broad, rolling fu'm lands of Long Island you

RURAL NEW YORK CITY

Interior of the (_)Id Country Cross-roads Store.

can walk on for hours and not find any sign of the city you
are in, except the enormous tax-rate, which, hv the way, has
the effect ot discouraging the farmers (many of whom did
not want to become city people at all) from spending money
tor paint and improvements, and this only results in making

NEW YORK SKETCHES

^'■^

s--\-v,_

i^>'

;^^-

-f^:^::^-

;:? fix- r'f I'^ff ^J^f* -" -.•■ ,.ijt

^^^,<

?<i"=^

>^^^i-*
^'^^s.- *■

The

Colony of Chinese Farmers, Near the Geographi-
cal Centre of Neiv York City.

the country look more prim-
itive, and less like what is
absurdly called a city.

But the best ot these rural
parts ot town cannot be spied
from car - windows, or the
beaten paths of travel.

Make a journey out
through the open country to
the southeast of Flushing, past

112

RURAL NEW YORK CITY

the Oakland
Golf Club, and
over toward the
Creedmoor Ri-

fle Range, after

■-Amu'

Working as industrially as the peasants of Europe, blue skirts, red handkerchiefs
about their heads . . .

a while turn
north and fol-
low a twisting

road that leads down into the ravine at the head of Little
Neck Bay, where a few ot the many Little Neck clams come
from. All of these places are well within the eastern boun-
dary of the city, and this little journey will furnish a very
good example of a certain kind ot rural New ^'ork, but
only one kind, for it is only one small corner of a very
big place.

As soon as you have ridden, or walked — it is better to
walk if there is plenty ot time — beyond the tine elms of
the ancient Flushing streets, you will be in as peacetul look-

113

NEW YORK SKETCHES

ing farming country as can he toiind anywhere. But the in-
teresting thing ahout it is that here are seen not merely a te\y
incongruous green patches tiiat happen to he Ictt hetween rap-
idly deyouring suhurhan towns — like the tields near Wood-
side where the German women wt)rk — out here one rides

through acre atter acre ot it,
farm after farm, mile atter mile,
up hill, down hill, corn-fields,
wheat-fields, stone fences, rail
fences, no fences, and neyer a
town in sight, much less any-
thing to suggest the city, except
the procession ot market-wagons
at certain hours, to or trom Col-
lege Point Ferry, and they aren't
so conspicuously urhan atter all.

Even the huge advertising
sign-hoards which usually shout
to passers-hy along the approaches
to cities are rather scarce in this
country, for it is ahout midway
between two branches of the only railroad on Long Island,
and there is no need for a trolley. There is nothing but
country roads, with more or less comfortable farm-liouses
and large, squatty barns; not only old tarm-houses, but what
is much more striking, farm-houses that are new. Now , it
does seem odd to build a new lariri-house in a city.

114

ht^^

^*#

^^•^

^^^

^^pw

^S/^

"^^W

Remains of a Windmill in New York City, Be
twecn Asturia and Steinway.

RURAL NEW YORK CITY

The Dreary Edge of Long Island City.

Out in the fields the men are ploughing. A rooster
crows in the barn-yard. A woman comes out to take in
the clothes. Children climb the fence to gaze when
people pass by. And one can ride for a matter of miles
and see no other kind of life, except the birds in the hedge
and an occasional country dog, not suburban dogs, but dis-
tinctly farm dogs, the kind that have deep, ominous barks, as
heard at night from a distance. By and by, down the dustv,
sunny, lane-like road plods a iat old family Dobbin, pulling
an old-fashioned phaeton in which are seated a couple of prim
old maiden ladies, dressed in black, who try to make him
move taster in the presence of strangers, and so push and
jerk animatedly on the reins, which he enjoys catching

IIS

NEW YORK SKETCHES

with his tail, and holds serenely until beyond the bend in
the road.

()t course, this is part of the city. The road map proves
it. Hut there are very few places along this route where vou
can lind it out in any other way. The road leads up over
a sort of plateau ; a wide expanse of country can be viewed

I'he Procession of Market-wagons at College Point Ferry,

in all directions, but there are only more tields to see, more

farm-houses and squatty barns, perhaps a village church

steeple in the distance, a village that has its oldest inhabitant

and a church with a church-yard. Away off to the north,

across a gleaming strip of water, which the map shows to

be Long Island Sound, lie the blue hills of the Bronx.

They, too, are well within Greater New York. So is all

that country to the southwest, far beyond the range oi the

eye, Jamaica, and Jamaica Bay and Coney Island. And over

ii6

RURAL NEW YORK CITY

Past dirty backyards and sad vacant luts.

there, more to the west, is dreary East New York and end-
less Brooklyn, and dirty Long Island City, and, still farther,
crowded Manhattan Island itself. Then one realizes some-
thing of the extent ot this strange manner of city. It is
very ridiculous.

When at last the head of Little Neck Bay is reached,
here is another variety of primitive country scene. The up-
land road skirting the hill, hevond which the rides of Creed-
moor are crashing, takes a sudden turn down a steep grade,
a guileless-looking grade, but very dangerous tor bicyclists,
especially in the fall when the ruts and rocks are covered
thick with leaves for days at a time. Then, after passing a
nearer view (through a vista of big trees) of the blue Sound,

117

NEW YORK SKETCHES

witli the darker blue ot tlie hills beyond, the road drops
down inti) a peacetul old valley, tucked awav as serene and
uiinntlested as it was early in the nineteenth century, when
the country cross-roads store down there was hrst built, along-
side ot the water-[n)\\ er mill, which is somewhat older. In
front is an old dam and mill-pond, called " The Alley," re-
cently improved, but still containing black bass; in the rear
Little Neck Bay opens out to the Sound beyond, one ot" the
sniping and ducking places of Greater New \'ork. The old
store, presumably the polling-place of that election district
ot the city, is where prominent personages of the neighbor-
hood congregate and tell fishing and shooting stories, and gos-
sip, and talk politics, seated on boxes and barrels around the
white-bodied stove, tor the sake ot w hich they chew tobacco.

It is one ot those stores that contain everything — from
anchor-chains to chewing-gum. There are bicycle sundries
in the show-case and boneless bacon suspended from the old
ratters, but the best thing in the place is a stream ot running
water. This is led down by a pipe trom the side ot the
hill, acts as a retrigerator tor a sort ot bar in one corner of
the store — tor this establishment sells a greater variety ot
commodities than most department stores — and passes out
into Long Island Sound in the rear.

The fact that they are in Greater New York does not
seem to bother them much down in this happy valley , at
least it hasn't changed their mode of life apparently. The
last time we were there a well-tanned Long Islander was

iiS

RURAL NEW YORK CITY

New \ iirk City L'p in the Beginnings of the Bronx Regions — Skating at Bronxdale.

having some duck loads ; he said he was merely going out
atter a tew snipe, hut he ordered No. 5's.

" Have you a policeman out here ? " we asked him.

" Oh, yes, but he doesn't come around very often."

" How often ? "

" Oh, I generally catch a glimpse of him once a month
or so," said the gunner. " But then, vou see, these here city
policemen have to be pretty careful, thev're likely to get lost."

" Down near Bay Ridge," a man on the cracker-barrel
put in as he stroked the store-cat, " one night a policeman
got oft his beat and floundered into the swamp, and if it
hadn't been that some folks of the neighborhood rescued
him, he'd have perished — of mosquitoes."

119

NEW YORK SKETCHES

" We don't have any mosquitoes here on the north
shore," put in the other, addressing us witliout hhnking. He
is probably the humorist of the neighborhood.

This is only one of the many pilgrimages that may be
made in Greater New York, and shows only one sort of
rurality. It is the great variety of unurban scenes that is the
most impressive thing about this city. Here is another sort,
seen along certain parts of Jamaica Bay :

Long, level sweeps of flat land, covered with tall, wild grass
that the sea-breezes like to race across. The plain is intersect-
ed here and there with streams of tide-water. At rare intervals
there are lonely little clumps of scrub-oaks, huddled close to-
gether for comfort. Away ofl' in the distance the yellow
sand-dunes loom up as big as mountains, and beyond is the
deep, thrilling blue of the open sea, with sharp-cut horizon.

The sun comes up, the wonderful color tricks of the
early morning are exhibited, and the morning flight of birds
begins. The tide comes hurrying in, soon hiding the mud
flats where the snipe were feeding. The breeze freshens up,
and whitecaps, like specks, can be seen on the distant blue
band of the ocean. . . . The sun gets hot. The tide
turns. The estuaries begin to show their mud-banks again.
The sun sinks lower ; and distant inlets reflect it brilliantly.
The birds come back, the breeze dies down, and the sun
sets splendidly across the long, flat plain ; another day has
passed over this part of a so-called city and no man has been

RURAL NEW YORK CITY

Another Kind of City Life — Along the Marshes of Jamaica Bay.

within a mile ot the spot. The nearest sign of habitation is
the lonely lite-saving station away over there on the dunes,
and, perhaps, a fisherman's shanty. Far out on the skv-line
is the smoke of a home-coming steamer, whose approach
has already been announced from Fire Island, forty miles
down the coast.

Then, here is another sort : A rambling, stony road, oc-
casionally passing comfortable old houses — historic houses
in some cases — with trees and lawns in tront, leading down
to stone walls that abut the road. The double-porticoed
house where Aaron Burr died is not far from here. An old-
fashioned, stone-arched bridge, a church steeple around the
bend, a cluster of trees, and under them, a blacksmith shop.

NEW YORK SKETCHES

Trudging up the hill is ;i little boy, who stares and sniffles,
carrying a slate and geography in one hand, and leading a
little sister by the other, who also sniffles and stares. This,
too, is Greater New York, Borough of Richmond, better
known as Staten Island. This boroueh has nearly all kinds
ot wild and tame rurality and suburbanity. Its farms need
not be described.

Ill

Pointing out mere farms in the city becomes rather
monotonous ; they are too common. But there is one kind
ot farm in New York that is not at all ct)mmon, that has
never existed in any t)ther city, so far as I know, in ancient
or modern times. It is situated, oddly enough, in about the
centre ot the -7,1 J square miles ot New York — so well as the
centre ot a boot-shaped area can be located.

Cross Thirtv-tourth Street Ferry to Long Island City,
which really does not smell so bad as certain ot our poets
would haye us believe ; take the car marked " Steinway,"
and ride tor titteen or twenty minutes out through dreary
city edge, past small, unpainted manutactories, squalid tene-
ments, dirty backyards, and sad vacant lots that serve as the
last resting-place for decayed trucks and overworked wagons.
Soon after passing a tumble-down windmill, which looks
like an historic old relic, on a hill-top, but w hich was built
in 1S67 and tumbled down only recently, the Steinway Silk
Mills will be reached (they can be distinguished by the long,

There is profitable oyster-dredging in several sections of the city.

NEW YORK SKETCHES

low wings of the building covered w ith windows like a hot-
house). Leave the car here and strike off tt) the left, down
the lane which will soon be an alley, and then a hundred
vards or so from the highway will be seen the first of the
odd, paper-covered houses ot a colonv ot Chinese farmers
who earn their living by tilling the soil ot Greater New York.

At short distances are the other huts crouching at the
toot ot big trees, with queer gourds hanging out in front to
dry. and large unusual crocks lying about, and huge
baskets, and mattings — all clearly from China ; they are as
different from what could be bought on the neighboring
avenue as the farm and farmers themselves are different
from most Long Island farms and farmers. Out in the
fields, which are tilled in the Oriental way, utilizing every
inch ot ground clean up to the fence, and laid out with even
divisions at regular intervals, like rice-fields, the farmers
themselves may be seen, working with Chinese implements,
their pigtails tucked up under their straw hats, while the
western world wags on in its own way all around them.
This is less than five miles from the glass-covered parade-
ground of the Waldorf-Astoria.

They have only three houses among them, that is, there
are only three of these groups of rooms, made of old boards
and boxes and covered with tar paper ; but no one in the
neighborhood seems to know just how many Chinamen live
there. The same sleeping space would hold a score or more
over in Pell Street.

124

RURAL NEW YORK CITY

Being Chinamen, thev grow only Chinese produce, a
pecuHar kind of bean and some sort of salad, and those large,
artistic shaped melons, seen onlv in China or Chinatown,
which they call something that sounds like " moncha," and
which, one of them told me, bring two cents a pound from
the Chinese merchants and restaurateurs of Manhattan. For
my part, I was very glad to learn of these farms, for I had
always been perplexed to account for the fresh salads and
green vegetables, of unmistakably Chinese origin, that can be
found in season in New York's Chinatown. Under an old
shed near bv they have their market-wagon, in which, look-
ing inscrutable, thev drive their stuff to market through
Long Island Citv, and bv way of James Slip Ferry over to
Chinatown ; then back to the tarm again, looking inscrutable.
And on Sundays, for all we know, thev leave the wagon be-
hind and go to gamble their earnings away in Mott Street,
or perhaps away over in some ot the well-known places ot
Jersey City. Then back across the two ferries to farming
on dreary Monday mornings.

Even up in Manhattan there are still places astonishingly
unlike what is expected ot the crowded little island on
which stands New York proper. There is Fort Washington
with tall trees erowina: out oi the Revolutionary breast-
works, and, under their branches, a fine view up the Hud-

NEW YORK SKETCHES

son to the mountains — a quiet, sequestered bit of public park
which the public hasn't yet learned to treat as a park, tliough
within sight of the crowds crossing the viaduct from the
Grant Monument on Riverside. There are wild flowers up
there every spring, and until quite recently so few people

v_ VI11VUV.I _\ Riiigc, -Ncir RichiuuiiJ, Malcn Island,

visited this spot for days at a time that there were sometimes
woodcock and perhaps other game in the thickly wooded
ravine by the railroad. Soon, however, the grass on the
breastworks will be worn off entirely, and the aged deaf
man who tends the river light on Jeffrevs Hook will become
sophisticated, if he is still alive.

It will take ItMiger, however, ior the regions to the
north, beyond Washington Heights, down through Inwood
and past Tubby Hook, to look like part of a city. And
across the Spuyten Duyvil Creek from Manhattan Island, up
through the winding roads of Riverdale to Mount St. Vin-

r26

RURAL NEW YORK CITY

cent, and so across the line to Yonkers, it is still wooded,
comparativelv secluded and country-like, even though so
many ot the tine country places thereabouts are being de-
serted. Over to the eastward, across Broadway, a peaceful
road which does not look like a part of the same thorough-

A Peaceful Scene in New York,

III the liistjiice is Si. .Andrew's Church, Itorough of Richmond, Stateii Island,

fare as the one with actors and sky-scrapers upon it, there are
the still wilder stretches of Mosholu and \^an Cortlandt Park,
where, a year or two ago, large, well-painted signs on the
trees used to say " Beware ot the Buffaloes."

The open country sport ot golt has had a good deal to
do with making this rural park more generally appreciated.
Golf has done for V^an Cortlandt what the bicycle had done
for the Bronx and Pelham Bay Parks. There are still nat-
ural, wild enough looking bits, off trom the beaten paths, in
all these parks, scenes that look delightfully dark and sylvan

in the yearly thousands of amateur photographs — the camera

127

NEW YORK SKETCHES

does not show the German family approaching from the rear,
or the egg-shells and broken beer-bottles behind the bushes
— but beware of the police if you break a twig, or pick a
blossom.

Those who enjoy the study of all the forms of nature
except the highest can tind plenty to sigh over in the way

A Kclit if the i:.irly Nineteenth Century, iH.ruuyh ut I-UlIkjiuiiJ.

the city thrusts itself upon the country. But to those who

think that the haunts and habits oi' the Man are not less

worthy of observation than those oi the Beaver and the

Skunk, it is all rather interesting, and some of it not so

deeply deplorable.

There are certain old country taverns, here and there, up

toward Westchester, and dou'n beyond Brooklyn and over on

Staten Island — not only those which everybody knows, like

128

RURAL NEW YORK CITY

the Hermitage in the Bronx and Garrisons over by the fort
at Willets Point, but remote ones which have not yet been
exploited in plays or books, and which still have a fine old
flavor, with faded prints of Dexter and Maud S. and much
earlier favorites in the bar-room. In some cases, to be sure,
though still situated at a country cross-roads, with green fields
all about, they are now used for Tammany head-quarters
with pictures of the new candidate for sheriff^ in the old-

An Old-fashioned Stone-arched Bridge. (Richmond, Staten Island.)

fashioned windows — but most ot them would have gone out
of existence entirely after the death ot the stage-coach, if it
had not been tor the approach oi the city, and the side-
whiskered New Yorkers ot a previous generation who drove
fast horses. If the ghosts ot these men ever drive back to
lament the good old davs together, they must be somewhat
surprised, possibly disappointed, to find these rural road-
houses doing a better business than even in their day. The

129

NEW YORK SKETCHES

bicycle revived the road-ln)use, and though tlie bicycle has
since been abandoned by those who prefer fashion to exer-
cise, the places that the wheel disclosed are not forgotten.
They are visited now in automobiles.

There are all those iiistoric country-houses within the
city limits, well known, and in some cases restored, chiefly
by reason of being witiiin the city, like the \'an Cortlandt
house, now a part ot the park, and the fumel mansion stand-
ing over Manhattan Field, a house which gets into most his-
torical novels of New York. Similarly Clareniont Park has
adopted the impressive Zabriskie mansion ; and the old Lor-
illard house in the Bronx might have been torn down by this
time but that it has been made into a park house and restau-
rant. Nearly all these are tableted by the " patriotic " socie-
ties, and made to teel their importance. The Bowne place
in Flushing, a very old type of Long Island farm-house,
was turned into a museum by the Bowne family itself — an
excellent idea. The Quaker Meeting-house in Flushing,
though not so old by twenty-five years as it is painted in the
sign which says " Built in 1695," will probably be pre-
served as a museum too.

Another relic in that h)calitv well worth keeping is the
Duryea place, a striking old stone farm-house with a wide
window on the second floor, now shut in with a wooden
cover supported by a long brace-pole reaching to the
ground. Out ot this window, it is said, a cannon used to
point. This was while the house was head-cjuarters tor Hes-

RURAL NEW YORK CITY

An Old House in Flatbush.

sian officers, during the long monotonous months when " the
main army of the British armv lay at Flushing; from W^hite-
stone to Jamaica ; " and upon Flushing Heights there stood
one of the tar-barrel beacons that reached from New York to
Norwich Hill, near Oyster Bay. The British officers used
to kill time by playing at Fives against the blank wall of the
Quaker Meeting-house, or by riding over to Hempstead
Plains to the fox-hunts — where the Meadowbrook Hunt
Club rides to the hounds to-day. The common soldiers
meanwhile stayed in Flushing and amused themselves, ac-
cording to the same historian, by rolling cannon-balls about
a course of nine holes. That was probably the nearest ap-

131

NEW YORK SKETCHES

proach to the great game at that time in America, and it
may have been played on the site oi' the present Flushing
Golf Club.

These same soldiers also amused themselves in less inno-
cent ways, so that the Quakers and other non-combatants in
and about this notorious Tory centre used to hide tiieir live
stock, indoors over night, to keep it from being made into
meals by the British. That may account for the habit of
the family occupying the Duryea place referred to ; they
keep their cow in a room at one end of the house. At any
rate it is not necessary for New Yorkers tt) go to Ireland to
see sights of that sort.

Those are a tew of the historic country places that have
come to town. There is a surprisingly large number of
them, and even when they are not adopted and tableted by
the D. A. R. or D. R., or S. R. or S. A. R., they are at
least known to local fame, and are pointed out and made
much of.

But the many abandoned country houses which are not
especially historic or significant — except to certain old per-
sons to whom they once meant home — goodly t)ld places, no
longer even near the country, but caught by the tide well
within the city, that is the kind to be sorry tor. Nobt)dy
pays much attention to them. A forlorn For Sale sign
hangs out in front, weather-beaten and discouraged. The
tall Colonial columns still try to stand up straight and to ap-
pear unconscious of the faded paint and broken windows,

132

RURAL NEW YORK CITY

hoping that no one notices the tangle of weeds in the old-
fashioned garden, where old-tashioned children used to play
hide-and-seek among the box-paths, now overgrown or
buried under tin cans. . . . Across the way, perhaps,
there has already squatted an unabashed row of cheap,
vulgar houses, impudent, staring little city homes, vividly
painted, and all exactly alike, with highly ornamented
wooden stoops below and zinc cornices above, like false-hair
fronts. They look at times as though they were putting
their heads together to gossip and smile about their odd, old
neighbor that has such out-ot-date fan-lights, that has no
electric bell, no folding-beds, and not a bit of zinc cornicing.
Meanwhile the old house turns its gaze the other way,
thinking of days gone bv, patiently waiting the end — which
will come soon enough.

^v 'r%

133

NOV 19 1902

1 co^

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Texts

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "New York sketches"

See other formats